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THE WAR, THE WORLD, 
AND WILSON 



Books by 
GEORGE CREEL 



IRELAND'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM 
HOW WE ADVERTISED AMERICA 
THE WAR, THE WORLD AND WILSON 



Harper i^ Brothers Publishers 




THE ENTRY INTO PARIS 

President Wilson and President Poincar6 



THE WAR, THE WORLD 
AND WILSON 



By 

GEORGE CREEL 

Author of 
"IRELANDS FIGHT FOR FREEDOM" 
!'HOW WE ADVERTISED AMERICA'! 




HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 






VJU L ' : : ^. 'J 



The War, the World and Wilson 



Copyrighti 1920, by Harper & Brothers 

Printed in the United States of America 

Published June, zgao 

F-U 



'CI.A570591 



To M31 Mother 

VIRQINIA CREEL 

At every step in my life an incentive, an 

inspiration and a standard — this hook 

is dedicated in love and gxatitude 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGB 

Foreword . i 

I. The Man and the President .... 14 

II. Neutrality 39 

III. "Strong Men" 59 

IV. "The Roosevelt Divisions" 75 

V. The Case of Leonard Wood 87 

VI. Tfl^E^ Power and the Glory 98 

VII. America's Moral Offensives 119 

VIII. The President's "Partizan Appeal" . . 133 

IX. Why the President Went to Paris . . 148 

X. Paris and Procrastination 164 

XI. "The Big Four" 177 

XII. The Opening Battle 189 

XIII. The Stab in the Back 201 

XIV. The Zero Hour 213 

XV. Mr. Keynes's Jeremiad 229 

XVI. What Must Germany Pay? 243 

XVII. The Question of Coal 258 

XVIII. Shantung and Hypocrisy.^. 271 

XIX. The Adriatic Tangle 283 

XX. Were the Fourteen Points Ignored? . 299 

XXI. The League of Nations 310 

XXII. How THE Treaty Was Killed .... 328 

XXIII. The Great American Tradition . . . 347 
Conclusion 359 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, 
AND WILSON 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, 
AND WILSON 



FOREWORD 

The people of the United States are faced to- 
day by a crisis more momentous than any 
that has gone before, for it is not America only 
that quivers in suspension, but the whole of that 
thing we know as civilization. It is a world that 
is molten — not the world of Macedon or Rome — 
but a twentieth-century world in which there 
are no longer the safeties of space, the decent 
reserve of barriers, its unhappy peoples thrown 
into confused collision by a shock that has 
crumpled in all four corners. And by the whirl 
of chance, or maybe in obedience to some inexo- 
rable law working behind the great screen, the 
task of molding is in the hands of no ancient 
state, confident in inherited tradition, but waits 
the experimental touch of a nation scarce one 
hundred and forty-four years old. 

The responsibilities of the United States are 
not a matter of speculation. Our material con- 
tributions, great and decisive as they were, stand 
dwarfed by the power and the glory that flowed 
from the declaration of American aims. It was 

I 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

our idealism, put in khaki, that made the Great 
War a war for democracy. It was not that 
when it began. It was hardly that when we 
entered it. Military pre-eminence may occasion 
dispute, but the moral leadership of America is 
not subject to question. 

On the instant that we drew the sword we told 
our own people, and all the peoples of earth, 
that we meant to fight a war against war^ that 
what we sought was the "destruction of arbitrary 
power," "the rights of small nations," "the 
reign of law based upon the consent of the gov- 
erned," an end to the mad business of competitive 
armaments, and the substitution of discussion for 
bloodshed by the estabhshment of a League of 
Nations to make certain "that the combined 
power of free nations will check every invasion 
of right, and serve to make peace and justice 
the more secure by affording a definite tribunal 
of opinion to which all must submit, and by which 
every international readjustment that cannot be 
amicably agreed upon by the peoples directly 
concerned shall be sanctioned." 

Our might struck the shackles of tyranny from 
the body of the world, but it was our pledges 
that set free the heart of the world. America, 
without dissent, indorsed these great guaranties 
of a new and better order, and the Allied govern- 
ments accepted them and hailed them as words 
of light and guidance. At home they gave 
unexampled unity and indomitable resolve; 
abroad they poured like wine into the war-weary 
veins of the Allies, won the support of neutral 
nations, and struck at the very foundations of 

2 



FOREWORD 

enemy morale. The world, hopeless, despairing, 
turned to us as the forlorn of Galilee turned to 
Christ, not knowing, but believing; not asking, 
but trusting. 

It was the giving of these pledges that won 
the war; it is the repudiation of these pledges 
that is losing the peace. What is the use of 
mincing words! The moral leadership that was 
our pride is now our shame. The peoples of 
earth are turning from us even as they turned to 
us, and in their hearts is a vaster bitterness than 
comes from any mere betrayal of the body. It 
is their hope that we have deserted: it is their 
dream that we have killed. "The tents have 
been struck, and the great caravan of humanity 
is again on the march," cried General Smuts. 
To where? And how? Ravaged by war, pes- 
tilence, and famine — disorganized, leaderless, 
desperate — the unhappy nomadism heads back 
to the same old morass in which mankind has 
struggled from the beginning, but now without 
the ignorances and submissiveness that made 
possible the ancient way, for they have seen the 
vision of a new world, the world that America 
promised. ^— 

These are the problems that face us to-day! 
Are we going to redeem our pledges or are v/e 
going to indorse repudiation? Will we assume 
proper responsibility for the majesties of aspira- 
tion that we called into being, or will we watch 
them play out as tragedies of disappointment? 
Shall we regain our moral leadership, pointing 
humanity's caravan to the high ground, or shall 
we trail as camp-followers, coming at last to a 
'^ 3 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

common quicksand? President Wilson spoke 
truly when he said that "the forces of the world 
do not threaten; they operate." Ours was the 
voice that called these forces into being — ours 
is the voice that must order them. Self-preser- 
vation joins with self-respect in the demand, for 
there are compulsions of interest as well as 
compulsions of honor. 

As a result of the Senate's course, the world 
to-day is as much of an armed camp as before 
the armistice. Germany — sullen, desperate, cha- 
otic — has an active army of 300,000, also a State 
Constabulary of 75,000, and a "Home Guard" 
of 600,000, both organizations composed entirely 
of war veterans. Against this threat, impover- 
ished France is compelled to keep 480,000 men 
under arms instead of releasing them for the 
task of reconstruction. The fighting force of 
the Bolshevists is estimated at 600,000 and 
Poland faces this menace with close to 500,000 
men, all of whom ought to be working. Italy, 
instead of concentrating upon her peace problems, 
inarches to bankruptcy with an army of half a 
million, and the Jugoslavs are also in battle 
array. The Serbs, destitute as they are, have 
250,000 men in the field, and Bulgaria plots 
revenge with a force of 100,000. Greece, whose 
peace army is 30,000, now has 300,000 men 
under arms. The Rumanians, forced to guard 
against the anger of Hungary, has an army of 
300,000, and Hungary, although limited to an 
army of 35,000, is copying the German "Home 
Guard" plan with success. Czechoslovakia, 
«eager for peace, has an army of 100,000 to guard 

4 



FOREWORD 

against the Germans and the Magyars. Eng- 
land has 44,000 troops in Mesopotamia, 13,000 
in Palestine, 200,000 in Ireland, and about 50,000 
in Egypt, not to mention her forces of iron re- 
pression in India. There are 25,000 Japanese 
troops in Siberia, 12,000 in Manchuria, and a 
large force in Mongolia, while in Japan itself 
there is an active army of 300,000 with 1,500,000 
trained reserves. 

Wherever one looks, democracy is hemmed in 
on one side by Trade Imperialism and on the 
other by Bolshevism. And America, the nation 
that called the democratic aspiration into life 
and passion, refuses aid and stands aloof! 
Must another world war be fought to drive 
home the fact that humanity's one hope is in an 
international concert? What stands far more 
probable than any mere renewal of European 
conflict, however, is a concentration of anger 
and despair against the selfish well-being of 
America. 

It is a situation in which every fact has all 
the obviousness of a wound. The Allies owe us 
an amount well above ten billions of dollars. 
Without a League of Nations, able to lift the 
crushing burdens of armies and navies from the 
backs of peoples, permitting national energies to 
be concentrated upon the speedy restoration of 
normal economic processes, there is not a chance 
that the United States will ever receive a cent 
of interest, much less a dollar of the principal. 
Nor is that all. Debtor nations do not love 
their creditor, especially when payment involves 
bankruptcy, and since repudiation is an ugly 

5 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

policy to adopt in cold blood, what more natural 
than the release of those passions that make for 
hot blood ? And what less difficult ? 

For more than a year the Senate of the United 
States has exhausted effort in the manufacture 
of enmity. It is not alone that we have stood 
aside from the great adventure in fraternity 
that we ourselves proposed, but this program of 
withdrawal has been companioned by a policy 
of studied insult. The honor of Japan has been 
questioned time and again, the faith of France 
has been impugned repeatedly, and there has 
been the mean insistence that self-governing 
dominions Hke Canada, Australia, New Zealand, 
and South Africa shall be put lower in the scale 
of countries than those small republics of the 
West Indies and Central America that are our 
own political and commercial dependencies. 

As a matter of fact, very little sophistry 
would be required to give united attack upon 
America all the sincerity and fervor of a cru- 
sade. A nation that preached the faith and 
then betrayed it! A people that pledged and 
then abandoned! In such a war there would 
be not only the cancelation of external debts 
without the shame of repudiation, but equally 
the salvation afforded by the spoils of victory. 
Far-fetched, perhaps, but it must be remem- 
bered that we are not dealing with the ordered, 
cautious world of other days, but a disorganized 
welter driven back upon its hopes, desperate in 
its despairs, and unspeakably wretched in all 
of its conditions. 

Never was choice so plain. Either a League 

6 



FOREWORD 

of Nations, a great world partnership in world 
reconstruction, eager and effective in restora- 
tion and stabilization, abating the passions and 
despairs of humanity by the sanities of its 
justice, or else a military establishment suffi- 
ciently large and powerful to guard our shores 
against the rising storm. There is no parallel 
for the madness that strikes down the Peace 
Treaty with one vote, insulting and alienating 
the whole world, and with another vote reduces 
naval appropriations, denies universal training, 
wipes out our merchant marine, and utterly 
annihilates the aircraft program. 

It is the people, as always in every great 
crisis, that must meet these problems and give 
these answers. Poisoned by partizanship, the 
bankruptcy of Congress is utter and absolute. 
Government by proxy has fallen down. It is 
the men and women of America who must fight 
the peace even as they fought the war. Not 
Republicans nor Democrats, not conservatives 
nor radicals, but the people as a whole; the 
countless millions who are not seen or heard, 
but whose energy and hopes and devotions are 
the strength of democracy. 

History is not always a sure guide, but often- 
times it is an inspiration, and in the annals of 
the Republic there are two crises that may well 
be recalled. On September lo, 1787, the Con- 
stitutional Convention finished its labors and 
reported back to the various states. Six years 
had passed since the Treaty of Paris — barren 
years full of hatreds, suspicions, and distrusts 

7 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

that gave victory the bitter taste of ashes. 
Commercial ruin and financial collapse joined 
to make Hberty an empty word and savage 
forces of disintegration undermined the weak 
foundations of union. New Hampshire, Massa- 
chusetts, and Rhode Island were compelled to 
contend against open rebellion, the Territory of 
Maine discussed the advisabihty of setting up 
an independent state, mobs closed the courts of 
Connecticut, North Carohna had witnessed the 
ugly attempt to form the state of Frankland, 
and traitorous talk of foreign alliances bubbled 
like acid in many sections. The mean prides of 
local sovereignty had the malign force of open 
treason; a blind selfishness dominated every 
council, and tariff wars and boundary disputes 
were constant invitations to conflict. Connec- 
ticut and Pennsylvania, after actual battles, 
were parties to a sullen truce, and New York, ^ 
Vermont, and New Hampshire, as the result of 
clashing greeds, stood on the verge of war. 

The Constitution, providing a central govern- 
ment with strength, power, and recognized 
authorities, was the one visible hope, if not the 
one obvious remedy, yet a campaign of nine 
months was required to secure the assent of the 
nine states necessary to ratification. Visionless 
men, more concerned with petty privileges than 
national welfare, denounced the document as a 
"triple-headed monster," and declared the whole 
plan "as deep and wicked a conspiracy as ever 
was invented in the darkest ages against the 
liberties of a free people." Washington was 
branded as a "fool" and "traitor," Franklin as 

8 



FOREWORD 

a "dotard," and both were burned in effigy. 
Riots were actually organized to give support 
to the "protest of free men against the insidious 
restoration of monarchy," and mobs publicly 
kindled bonfires with copies of the "accursed 
proposal" that was to rob the states of their 
rights. 

Nor was ratification, when it did come, a 
thing of released enthusiasm, but rather the 
spent victim of a gantlet. In Massachusetts 
there was the small majority of nineteen, in 
Virginia it carried by ten votes only, and in 
New Hampshire by eleven. New York, the 
ninth state, remained in convention for forty 
days. Governor CHnton holding two-thirds of 
the delegates against the Constitution for no 
larger reason than that it was the work of his 
political enemies. The unanswerable arguments 
of Hamilton beat down the barriers of this 
malignant partizanship, and the sullen Clinton 
was finally deserted by enough of his delegates 
to change the minority of twenty-seven into a 
majority of three. 

In such manner the people of the Colonies 
met the first great American crisis. Unhappy 
days, time of sick fears and deep humiliation, 
with narrowest of margins for success, but still 
a margin wide enough for the passage of the 
vision that was to save the world. 

In 1864, while Lincoln sat by the side of 
America as the one physician able to save, the 
sick-room filled with the same passion and clamor 
that sent Washington to his grave in loneHness 
and disillusion. Not defeat could have spelled 

9 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

more disastrous consequences than parley or 
compromise, yet Greeley spoke for no incon- , ^ 
siderable number when he wrote to Lincoln that ^r 
"our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country 
longs for peace — shudders at the prospect of 
fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devasta- 
tions, and of new rivers of human blood; and a 
wide-spread conviction that the government and 
its supporters are not anxious for peace, and do 
not improve proffered opportunities to achieve 
it, is doing great harm now, and is morally 
certain, unless removed, to do far greater in the 
approaching elections." 

The President was charged with "feebleness 
and want of principle," and General Fremont 
declared that "if Mr. Lincoln should be nomi- 
nated, as I believe it would be fatal to the country 
to indorse a policy and renew a power which has 
cost us the lives of thousands of men and need- 
lessly put the country on the road to bank- 
ruptcy, there will be no other alternative but to 
organize against him every element of conscien- 
tious opposition, with the view to prevent this 
misfortune of his re-election." 

The forces of defeatism were rich, organized, 
and powerful, yet Lincoln was re-elected in a 
passion of faith that burst the bonds of party. 
His policies were indorsed, the hosts of compro- 
mise were scattered, and well within the year 
there came the surrender at Appomattox that ) 
forever ended the issue of human slavery and 
forever Ufted the indivisibility of the Union 
above question or debate. Thus the people of 
the United States met the second great American 

lO 



FOREWORD 

crisis, standing like iron in support of the principle 

that fundamental truths do not permit of truce. 

• • • • • • • 

For a third time in the history of the Republic 
the people are called upon to decide organic 
policies — to declare their will with respect to 
democracy's future course. The issues are as 
insistent as fundamental and upon the decisions 
hangs the fate of the great dreams and high hopes 
that gave courage to Washington and Lincoln. 
National destiny is a fine mouth-filling phrase, 
but to-day it has a poignancy that must pierce 
veneer, striking down to those sincerities that 
are the soul of America. 

A first task is to get back to a war footing as 
far as the national morale is concerned. En- 
thusiasm, unity, and high resolve must be 
regained. Just as party, creed, and color disap- 
peared when we massed to fight the autocratic 
pretensions of the Imperial German government, 
so must these divisions disappear to-day when 
the crises of reconstruction threaten our national 
life. 

It were well indeed could Washington's Fare- 
well Address be cast in bronze and set in every 
market-place, for the Father of His Country, 
looking down the years, warned against the 
very danger that nets us now. Solemnly, force- 
fully, he pointed out the ** baneful effects of the 
spirit of party," and in words of high prophetic 
value declared that "the alternate domination 
of one faction over another, sharpened by the 
spirit of revenge natural to party dissension . . . 
is itself a frightful despotism . . . the common 
I II 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are 
sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a 
wise person to discourage and restrain it. It 
serves always to distract the public councils 
and enfeeble the public administration. It agi- 
tates the community with ill-founded jealousies 
and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one 
part against another ... a fire not to be 
quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to 
prevent it bursting into a flame, lest, instead of 
warming, it should consume.** 

Can it be said that these evils have not come 
to pass? Through dreary, humiliating months 
we have heard the great question of world 
union debated as though it were a chattel mort- 
gage; we have seen humanity's hopes sub- 
ordinated to office hunger and the future of 
America limited to the presidential election of 
1920. And, crowning infamy, the sorry chaffer- 
ing has been linked invariably with the names 
of Washington and Lincoln — ^the two Americans, 
of all our noble company, who most despised 
the sordid chicane of partizans. These are the 
things that must be swept away, even as we 
swept away all ignobilities of the spirit when we 
rallied to the defense of free institutions and gave 
great slogans to a despairing world. 

The citizen who does not do his own thinking 
to-day is no less a traitor than the man who 
tried to evade the draft, and those who think in 
terms of party prejudice or personal advantage 
are America's enemies. In this hour when the 
fate of democracy hangs in the balance, the 
crim.inal mind is the closed mind. 

12 



FOREWORD 

It is in the interests of public information that 
this book has been written. It is, frankly 
enough, a whole-hearted advocacy of the League 
of Nations, and yet a very honest attempt has 
been made to subject every question to such 
analysis, and to make such presentation of facts, 
as will permit the reader to form his independent 
judgments. The consideration begins with our 
very entrance into the war because imminent 
issues are not intelligible unless considered in 
relation to causes. It works through the per- 
sonality of Woodrow Wilson, and away from it, 
because he was and is, by virtue of his office, 
inevitably the source and center. 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

IT is the misfortune of democratic governments 
that they tend inevitably to operate through 
the emotions rather than the intellectual proc- 
esses. The party organization, always the mo- 
tive power in the formation of political opinion, 
may have its origin in high ideals, but ultimately 
it becomes a business on the success of which 
hangs the employment or disemployment of 
thousands. Victory becomes the chief concern, 
and it follows, naturally enough, that principles 
are subordinated to personalities. To feel is 
instinctive: to think is laborious. ^ To attack or 
to defend a candidate is infinitely simpler and 
more effective than to. attack or to defend an 
issue, inasmuch as the one course lends itself to 
emotions and assertions, while the other calls 
for intelligence and facts, y As a consequence, 
the present situation is not original in any de- 
gree, but part and parcel of an established 
routine. The League of Nations, the Peace 
Treaty, questions domestic and international, 
are not discussed fairly and informatively, for 
the very simple reason that partizan purposes 
are best served by a direct personal attack 
upon the President, designed to appeal to irrita- 

14 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

tions and prejudices. This condition, unfor- 
tunate always, is rendered still more unhappy 
by the fact that Woodrow Wilson is, and has 
been from the very first, an easy target for 
misrepresentation and misunderstanding. 

As far as appearances are concerned, there is 
a certain measure of justification for the repeated 
charges that the President is inclined to autoc- 
racy, preferring to "play a lone hand** instead 
of inviting counsel; that he is cold and lacks 
human warmth; that he is selfish and self- 
centered; that he is without capacity for friend- 
ship; and that he has worked disintegration by 
his disregard of Congress. These surface indica- 
tions are sufficient to the purposes of politicians, 
for the Great American Public has never been 
particularly in love with analysis. 

Nothing is more true than that people do not 
live by bread alone; catch-phrases constitute a 
staple article of diet, especially in a democracy. 
All citizens worthy of the name talk largely of 
"constitutional rights," yet not one in a thou- 
sand has ever read the Constitution. Every 
four years the electorate, or such portion of it as 
has had the energy to register, votes for a Presi- 
dent of the United States, yet not one in a hun- 
dred thousand has any definite, authoritative 
conception of the office or its powers. It is 
these ignorances that have played so surely into 
the hands of partizans. 

The makers of the Constitution were not 
vague in their ideas of the powers or functions of 
the President, nor were they less than vigorous 
and explicit in defining them. The Fathers con- 

15 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

ceived the office as the keystone in the federal 
arch, the one seat of administration, the true 
source of the central control necessary to effi- 
ciency. Not only was the President constituted 
one of the three great co-ordinate branches of 
government, with power to veto the legislative, 
but other high authorities were given him until 
the cry arose that his privileges ran far beyond 
those of the British Crown. Madison, Frank- 
lin, Hamilton, and their associates were not 
afraid of power because there was also respon^ 
sibility to the people; their real fear was that 
the President had not been given sufficient 
strength to make him what they intended him 
to be — a Chief Executive in fact as well as name. 

These doubts were only with respect to the 
peace powers of the President, for when the 
consideration of war powers was reached, even 
ultra-democrats conceded the necessity of a 
supreme control virtually despotic in its sweep. 
It was the one possible answer to the well- 
founded criticism that a democracy, with its 
balance of power, could not make war, since war 
was one thing that called for centralized purpose 
and instancy of decision. A President of the 
United States, in time of war, is either a dictator 
or a traitor, for dictatorship in war is the Con- 
stitution's direct intent. 

Woodrow Wilson was in no wise ignorant of 
the aim of the Constitutional Convention. It 
is to be remembered that he did not receive his 
nomination as a reward for the usual hack ser- 
vice of the partizan, but in recognition of a 
statesmanship evidenced in action to some 

i6 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

extent, but far more in voluminous writings 
that shot Hght through the confusions of govern- 
ment. It is only necessary to read his books to 
discover that his views on the functions of the 
President were at one with the thought and 
purpose of the Constitution's framers. 

In Congressional Government, written in 1884, 
he pointed out a Chief Executive's opportunities 
for service, and lamented that the "high office 
has fallen from its first estate of dignity because 
its power has waned; and its power has waned 
because the power of Congress has become pre- 
dominant." The reason, as he saw it, was a 
steady usurpation on the part of Congress, its 
growing habit of "investigating and managing 
everything," and its effort to club the Executive 
into obedience by denying appropriations or 
refusing confirmations. 

In 1879, when only twenty-three years of age, 
his article on ** Cabinet Government in the 
United States" set out his behef that ** there is 
no one in Congress to speak for the nation. 
Congress is a conglomeration of inharmonious 
elements; a collection of men representing each 
his neighborhood, each his local interest; an 
alarmingly large proportion of its legislation is 
'special'; all of it is at best only a limping 
compromise between the conflicting interests of 
the innumerable localities represented." 

In 1900 he said: "When foreign aflFairs play a 
prominent part in the politics and policy of a 
nation, its Executive must of necessity be its 
guide: must utter every initial judgment, take 
every first step of action, supply the information 

17 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

upon which it is to act, suggest and in large 
measure control its conduct/' 

In 191 1 he said: "The increasing dependence 
of the country upon its executive officers is 
thrusting upon them a double function. They 
must undertake the business of agitation — that 
is to say, the business of forming and leading 
opinion, and it will not be very effectual or 
serviceable for them to do that unless they take 
the next step and make bold to formulate the 
measures by which opinion is to be put into 
effect." 

When Woodrow Wilson took office, therefore, 
it was with a political philosophy fully formed — 
a philosophy that held the true powers of the 
President to be abridged at every point by the 
unconstitutional encroachments of the legisla- 
tive branch. Facing him was a Congress stub- 
born in its resolve to retain the prerogatives 
filched from a series of weak or ignorant execu- 
tives. The lock of wills was instant, also funda- 
mental, for on the outcome hung decision as to 
whether the President should be the servant of 
the people or the servant of Congress, a leader 
or a follower, a spokesman or an echo. 

Truce was not possible; the issues were too 
clean cut. And Woodrow Wilson won. In 
peace he was the Chief Executive of the nation. 
In war he was the Commander-in-chief. This is 
as the Constitution meant it to be. He did not 
usurp; he merely regained. The price that he 
paid for victory, however, cost him heavily in 
popularity. ^Congress has ever hated and fought 
the President it could not rule.! It was also the 

18 ' 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

case that the public, out of its profound contempt 
for Congress, began to feel that the President 
should take over the duties of the legislative 
branch. When he did not do so, discontent 
developed. If a needed law was not passed, 
it was Wilson that was to blame. Whatever 
went wrong, whether in a city, a state, the nation, 
or the world, there was a general feeling that 
Wilson should have "fixed" it. Even those 
most blatant in crying "Dictator!" were pas- 
sionate in their indignation when the President 
refused to remedy the incompetencies of Con- 
gress by some usurpation of power. Yet the 
victory was worth all that it cost. Woodrow 
Wilson has shown the country what a President 
should be, and although people will undoubtedly 
apply the tests unconsciously, the Chief Execu- 
tives of the future will be measured by his 
standard. Never again will we rest content 
with mountebanks, mere partizans, nonentities, 
or congressional errand-boys. 

This clash of diametrically opposed concep- 
tions of power, while at the bottom of the Presi- 
dent's inharmonious relations with Congress, 
was given intensity by personal dissimilarities no 
less fundamental. Woodrow Wilson looks at 
things from the standpoint of the statesman; 
the average officeholder approaches government 
from the standpoint of machine politics. The 
politician is concerned only with votes, the 
statesman with results; the one has an eye 
upon the popularities of the moment, the other 
upon history. One of the fixed traditions of 
American political life is that the way to success 
3 19^ 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WH.SON 

is through compromise, and as a consequence 
those have been most admired and most elevated 
who have managed to slither their way through 
opposed ideas and irreconcilable ideals without 
commitment. In sharp contradiction, a funda- 
mental of the Wilson philosophy is that truces 
are dangerous when they are not discreditable. 
Where disputes are personal he is wiUing to 
search for the basis of concession, but when a 
vital issue is at stake he does not know the 
meaning of compromise. With all his soul he 
believes that principles have to be fought out. 

Such a passionate conviction could not pos- 
sibly be turned on or ofF at will, as with a spigot 
attachment, and his direct contacts were in- 
evitably affected. The intellectually dishonest 
were loathsome to him, and not by any advan- 
tage of self-interest could he be induced to meet 
and confer with them. "We send men to 
prison for stealing bread,** he once exclaimed, 
"but we send them to Congress when they steal 
faith.*' The popular habit of confusing ability 
with mere cunning, of letting "slickness** pass 
for brains, was irritating to him, and his pride 
as an American suffered real humiliation at see- 
ing men like Reed, Watson, and Penrose sitting 
in the Senate of the United States. 

His partizanship, based upon a conception of 
public service rather than personal profit, was 
not of the ardent kind that gave any satisfaction 
to the members of his own party. Years ago, 
in an article on Mr. Cleveland, he defined him 
as "the sort of President the makers of the 
Constitution had vaguely in mind: more man 

20 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

than partizan, with an independent will of his 
own: hardly a colleague of the Houses so much 
as an individual servant of the country: exer- 
cising his powers like a Chief Magistrate rather 
than hke a party leader." With great questions 
to be decided, questions that concerned the lives 
and hopes of millions, the President evidenced ' 
a growing distaste for the long-winded visiting i >> 
that had no larger object than the discussion of \ 
a postmastership, the party outlook in a district, \ 
or the necessity of placating this or that boss. \ 
Had this distaste confined itself to his contacts V 
with professional politicians, the injury would not ^; 
have been irreparable, but it happened to be the 
case that the President was not elected by a \ 
party, but by a movement — a great progressivist 
uprising of men and women grown sick of \ 
"machines" and eager for escape from the old ^ 
Civil War ahgnment. Every appointment to ^ 
office should have been studied carefully with a 
view to strengthening this movement. This was 
what the President did not do. His keen disHke 
of "patronage brokers" made him hold aloof 
from party bosses, but he failed to accompany 
this attitude by any determined search for 
appointees with whom progressivism was a 
religion. Anxious to get rid of an unpleasant 
business, he fell more and more into the habit 
of depending upon the advice of those close to 
him, and as a consequence men were selected 
who satisfied neither party nor movement. 
Garrison, Mc Reynolds, Gregory, Burleson, and 
others like them were not "machine men," but 
neither were they Wilson's kind. As a matter of 

21 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

fact, every one of them was a Bourbon of Bour- 
bons. This haphazard method of selection, due 
entirely to the President's refusal to take keen 
and continuous personal interest in appoint- 
ments, worked a triple injury — it surrounded 
him with men who did not speak his language 
or think his thoughts; it alienated the leaders 
of his party, and it weakened and eventually 
demoralized the progressivist movement. 

There is this to say in his behalf, however: 
the treadmill activities of the White House 
leave its occupant little time for anything else, 
that is, if he has honesty and high purpose. It is 
rare indeed for any one to consider the Presidency 
in the light of a joh, but it is a fact that a con- 
scientious Chief Executive is called upon for more 
downright drudgery than any other official in the 
world. The position still runs exactly along the 
lines laid down in 1787, when the population of 
the entire country totaled less than the census 
of New York to-day, with the result that the 
duties are a queer, impossible jumble of tre- 
mendous problems and absurd clerical routine 
calculated to break the strongest. At a mo- 
ment when the President is considering some^ 
vital domestic question or facing an interna- 
tional complication, nothing is more likely than 
an enforced halt while he affixes his signature 
one thousand times to papers that should never 
get beyond a third assistant secretary. 

The difficulties of the place are added to by 
the popular point of view with regard to public 
servants. The head of a great corporation 
would not hold his position a day were he to 

22 



THE MA]Nf AND THE PRESIDENT 

waste his energies in time-wasting activities 
designed only to advance personal popularity, 
yet a President is confidently expected to leave 
his office door open for all who choose to "drop 
in." America is now a world power, and Amer- 
ican government has become a tremendous com- 
plexity that centers all the ceaseless striving of 
110,000,000 people, and yet the executive head 
of this huge corporation is expected to hold to 
the formula of conduct laid down in the days of 
tallow dips and stage-coaches. Professional poli- 
ticians are largely to blame for this, with their 
continual emphasis upon the office rather than 
the task, their campaign mummeries and their 
buncombe about "simple, rugged Americanism." 
The vulgar charlatanism of campaigns has done 
much to confuse democracy with mere physical 
boisterousness, and in many minds there is an 
actual insistence upon hand-shaking, shoulder- 
clapping, and ability to remember first names as 
the real democratic tests. 

Even had he been strong enough to stand the 
physical strain of such a conception, it is much 
to be doubted if Woodrow Wilson would have 
attempted to live up to this caricature. His 
temperament precludes the tricks of the pro- 
fessional office-seeker, the labored lord-of-the- 
manor graciousness that passes for "democracy,'* 
and his conscience forbids the fawning, time- 
wasting activities of the professional office-seeker. 
As a historian and a publicist, he had made care- 
ful study of the duties of the Chief Executive, 
and it was in 1908, long before he had thought 
of filling the office, that he wrote this conclusion: 

23 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

No other man's day is so full as his, so full of the responsi- 
bilities which tax mind and conscience alike, and demand 
an inexhaustible vitality. The mere task of making 
appointments to office, which the Constitution imposes 
upon the President, has come near to breaking some of our 
Presidents down, because it is a never-ending task in a 
civil service not yet put upon a professional footing, con- 
fused with short tenns of office, always forming and dis- 
solving. And in proportion as the President ventures to 
use his opportunity to lead opinion and to act as spokesman 
of the people in affairs, the people stand ready to over- 
whelm him by running to him with every question, great 
and small. They are as eager to have him settle a literary 
question as a political; hear him as acquiescently with 
regard to matters of expert knowledge as with regard to 
public affairs, and call upon him to quiet all troubles by 
his personal intervention. Men of ordinary physique and 
discretion cannot be Presidents and live, if the strain 
be not somehow relieved. We shall be obliged always to 
be picking our Chief Magistrates from among wise and 
prudent athletes. 

He knew, therefore, that he would have to 
choose, at the very outset, between popularity 
and service. Either he could consider the office 
politically, disregarding duty in the interests of 
personal acclaim, or he could assume it as a task 
to be discharged in honor and high faith, thereby 
surrendering all hope of applause. He made his 
decision as an American, not as a politician. 
After estimating the task in terms of routine 
and national needs, and measuring the demand 
against his strength, he saw plainly that the one 
chance was a careful, systematic, scientific con- 
servation of every ounce of energy. Taking up 
the study of his problem with the cool detach- 
ment of an engineer in charge of a plant, the 
President and his physician worked out an iron 

24 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

regimen, a fixed daily program that ordered 
every minute of his life with machine-like 
exactitude. 

Certain hours for work and sleep, regular 
mornings for golf and regular nights for the 
theater, a scientific diet, and stern caution against 
waste effort of every kind. It was not only 
physical habits that were forced under rigid 
discipline, but mental habits as well. Never at 
any time disposed to solitude or reticence, 
but one of the most companionable men that 
ever lived, the President had never failed to 
find a large part of his pleasure in the give-and- 
take of conversation. The trouble was, as 
with every eager, vivid personality, that he gave 
more than he took. His talk was no mere 
adventure in anecdotes, but a broad sweep 
across the whole of life, illuminating everything 
that it touched. Such contacts, inevitably 
entailing an expenditure of nervous force, had 
to be surrendered. Interviews were confined 
to official importances, and personal approaches 
increasingly gave way to the submission of 
memoranda. In the quiet of his study every 
paper received the painstaking attention of 
the President, but even this larger efficiency 
failed to soothe wounded vanities. As he was 
permitted no excitement at meals, even eating 
became a business. This deprived him of one of 
Roosevelt*s greatest assets, making the White 
House table a quiet affair instead of the gather- 
ing-place that the President would have liked. 

Only his doctors knew. Not once, in all the 
driving years, did he confess the fight that went 

25 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

on in loneliness from day to day. Some one 
has said that the President's greatest weakness 
is an utter inability to "grand-stand." This 
lack was never more apparent than in connection 
with his struggle against exhaustion. A word, 
a gesture, would have won him understanding 
and sympathy, but he would not speak it, 
would not make it. He won and continued to 
win, but victory was never assured. There 
was always a shadow that hung over him, 
always the fear that each new day might bring 
the added ounce of strain that could not be 
endured. And so each hour that he wrested 
from his battle was devoted to the task, not 
to the man. 

These conditions of the President's life should 
serve to explain many of the inconsistencies 
that have baffled observers, resulting in biog- 
raphies that are no more than studies in con- 
trast. One man sees him as a thinking-machine, 
cold, remote, aloof, utterly devoid of animal 
heat, while another sees him as a man of warm 
impulses, intensely human, and winningly genial. 
Both are true pictures, one being the man, the 
other the President: one a normal person, 
impulsive and companionable, the other the 
creature of an iron discipline, compelled to live 
within himself because it was the only way in 
which he could live and discharge the duties 
imposed upon him by his official oath and his 
conscience. 

The results of Woodrow Wilson's determination 
to serve are written in the bronze of history. 
The administrative record of the last eight years 

26 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

IS a record of accomplishment without parallel 
in the annals of American government. Great 
laws, dealing with the very fundamentals of 
finance, industry, tariff legislation, human wel- 
fare, commerce, and credit, were either con- 
ceived by him or else mastered by him in the 
interests of intelligent advocacy. 

Confronted from the first by a press of prob- 
lems handed down from the Roosevelt and Taft 
administrations — faced by the necessity of end- 
ing the rule of Special Privilege, in no instance 
did he evade or ignore. Tariff revision, the Fed- 
eral Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission, 
rural credits, the Clayton anti-trust law, the 
child-labor law, the eight-hour day, workmen's 
compensation, development of natural resources, 
road-building, the Seamen's Act, the shipping bill 
— these were some of his measures that put 
foundations under honest business, defeated 
cruelty and injustice, threw the mantle of pro- 
tection over the weak and helpless, and restored 
the pride, the courage, and creative genius of 
the American people. With it all he had to 
meet one international complication after the 
other, and always there was the wretched weight 
of an enormous routine. 

It did not seem possible that human strength 
could stand additional strain, yet when America 
entered the war he seemed to find new wells of 
energy on which to draw. Throughout the 
struggle he did the work of ten men. While it 
is true enough that no one was "close" to the 
President, it is also true that he himself was 
close to every man connected with government. 

27 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

He had his hand on the pulse of each department, 
and his knowledge of detail was as amazing 
as it was often disconcerting in the hour of re- 
port. He did not seem able to divest himself 
of a feeling of personal responsibility for every 
soldier that he sent to France, and this virtual 
obsession drove him relentlessly. What the 
youth of America was doing appealed to him 
as so wonderfully fine, so shot through with a 
splendor of sacrifice, that he looked upon any 
sparing of himself as nothing short of betrayal. 
After a crowded day — for, despite alleged "aloof- 
ness," he saw people in a steady stream of five, 
ten, and fifteen-minute interviews — he gave his 
evening to the papers that stacked his desk, 
typing off comment, suggestion, or instructions 
on his own battered little machine. It took six 
weeks invariably to get a ruling from the State 
Department, but the President replied either 
at once with a dictated letter or else on the 
morning of the second day there came the small 
envelope with its little typewritten page, all 
curiously neat, signed "W. W." 

I saw him many times when his face had the 
gray of ashes, but the one complaint that I ever 
heard was on the score of sleepiness. "Fm 
getting like Dickens's fat boy,'* he laughed one 
day. "I could go to sleep at an angle of ninety- 
five degrees." The importance of husbanding 
his energies, however, made him less and less 
willing to spend them upon the trivial, and the 
immaterial and irrelevant became increasingly 
unbearable. There was so much to do, and 
always the fear of being hampered in the doing 

28 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

by some rebellion of the body. I felt always 
that any standing possessed by me with the 
President was due to the fact that at the very 
outset I divined this sense of urgency. Before 
an interview with him, I would prepare for it 
just as a lawyer prepares a brief, putting each 
subject down in its proper order, heading and 
subheading, and working up the manner of 
presentation in order to strip away every vestige 
of the non-essential. Within ten seconds after 
shaking hands I had commenced my memoran- 
dum and followed it through without pause or 
change. So few did this. During the war I 
took scores of visitors to the White House, many 
of them men of large affairs and high reputation 
as executives, and it was seldom indeed that 
any of them drove hard and straight at the 
point. One man that I remember particularly 
had twenty minutes to present a most important 
matter and he did not even touch upon it until 
after nineteen minutes had passed. 

Thomas Garrigues Masaryk, that great states- 
man now President of Czechoslovakia, once 
remarked to me on the "amazing impracticality'* 
of America's so-called "practical men," and 
whimsically commented that of all the people 
he had met "your visionary, idealistic President 
is by far and away the most intensely practical." 
Franklin Lane had a habit of referring to him 
as "an idealist in action," but the only other who 
ever seemed to grasp this very obvious charac- 
teristic of the President was Charles H. Grasty, 
who touched on it as follows in the course of a 
recent article in the Atlantic Monthly: 

29 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

After seeing him at Paris, I would expect him to succeed 
if, upon his retirement from the Presidency at sixty-four 
years of age, he took the highly improbable step of entering 
the field of industry. In a large executive position, say 
the presidency of the Steel Corporation, I confidently 
believe that he would make an unprecedented success. 
He has the keenest and truest sense of what is real. Irrele- 
vance cuts him to pieces. When he is at work on a thing that 
engages his interest he is like a hound on the scent. Waste 
of time or any kind of lost motion is like poison to him. 
A member of the Big Four once said to me: "Wilson works. 
The rest of us play, comparatively speaking. We Euro- 
peans can't keep up with a man who travels a straight 
path with such a swift stride, never looking to the right 
or left. We cannot put aside our habit of rambling a bit 
on the way." 

The reason, perhaps, is found in the fact that 
of all our misused words, practicality has been 
most twisted away from its original meaning. 
Owing to the general habit of measuring accom- 
pHshment in terms of profit, it has come to 
stand for acquisitiveness, for a certain mean 
shrewdness, for the successes of greed. The 
man who dreams the dream of tunneling a 
mountain so that locked waters may turn the 
desert into orchard, and then allows himself 
to be cheated of the financial reward, is "im- 
practical," but the glorified pawnbroker that 
does the cheating is hailed as "practical." 

Watching the President's mind work was like 
watching the drive of a perfectly tuned engine. 
Intellectual discipline, supplementing natural 
ability, has placed every faculty at his immediate 
call, and there is never a hint of waste nor delay. 
What often passes for "peremptoriness" with 
him is really nothing more than his habit of 

30 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

thinking straight and thinking through. Having 
certainties of his own, he pays people the com- 
pHment of assuming that they themselves have 
equally definite conclusions, and he invites 
the clash of ideas. Instead of disliking argu- 
ment, there was never any one who had higher 
appreciation of the value of argument. What 
he does not like, to be sure, is the blithe custom 
of substituting mere assertions for established 
facts and placing reliance upon opinions rather 
than logic. 

I was in Washington from the first week of 
the war to the last, occupying a position that 
brought me into intimate contact with the head 
of every department, bureau, and committee, 
and I can say truthfully that of all those assem- 
bled minds the President's was the most open. 
This does not mean the usual catch-basin type 
of mind into which any passer-by may throw 
his mental trash, but a mind receptive to sug- 
gestions, one with a welcome for new ideas. He 
comes to his conclusions too carefully to give 
them up quickly, but once let his facts be dis- 
puted successfully and he surrenders without 
question. And of all the men who gathered to "^' 
direct the progress of the great war machine, 
the President was the most modest and the most 
courteous. No man ever heard him utter a 
vainglorious word or a rude one. What was 
always most impressive, however, was his re- 
markable control over as hot a temper as ever 
burned within a human being. 

A habit of emphasizing the Scotch strain in 
Wilson's blood has curiously obscured the fact 

31 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

that on the paternal side his grandfather and 
grandmother were both Irish. Never in any 
one were two blood strains more apparent or 
more evenly balanced. The result is the very 
unusual combination of strength and sensi- 
bility. "Strong men" are too often lacking 
in the emotional necessities, while delicacies 
of perception and feeling are generally compan- 
ioned by a sort of wishy-washiness. The mixt- 
ure is likewise responsible for a very definite 
cross-pull, and no one is more aware of it than 
the President himself. As he said to me one 
day: "The Irish is always the first to react and 
its invariable command is to go ahead. The 
Scotch, however, is never more than a second 
behind, and always catches me by the coattail 
with the warning to wait a minute and think it 



over.'* 



C^ As a result, his conclusions are invariably 
reached by a process of incubation, assisted at 
every point by the most painstaking study and 
thorough investigation. Instead of an "im- 
patience of counsel and failure to subject him- 
self to the corrective process of association," 
the very reverse is true. To use his own favorite 
phrase, he "borrows brains" wherever he finds 
them, and many important decisions are delayed 
unwisely while he waits to see persons assumed 
to have certain special knowledge. Complete 
information is a passion with him, and it was in 
this connection that Colonel House proved so 
valuable. Soft-spoken, selfless, unassertive, but 
an epitome of alertness, the colonel was a high- 
class sponge, with the added beauty of being 

32 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

easy to squeeze. Once in possession of every 
fact in the case, the President withdraws, com- 
mences the business of consideration, compari- 
son, and assessment, and then emerges with a / 
decision. 

This habit of thought is by no means a short 
cut to popularity. There is a certain vanity 
in all of us that makes us like to feel that our 
views carry weight, that our conclusions have 
the quality of convincing, and a certain chill 
is bound to come when we see views and con- 
clusions carted away to be sorted over with a 
lot of others. Also, in the case of politicians, 
advice usually means control. The charge that 
the President "dislikes advice" is simply that 
the President prefers to form his own conclu- 
sions instead of letting others form them for 
him. 

If, however, the Scotch strain disposes him to 
slowness in making a decision, the Irish strain 
assumes command when the decision has been 
reached, and he brings to his advocacies a 
fighting spirit that takes no account of odds. 
Slow to take fire, he burns inextinguishably 
when once alight. Here again, however, the 
President suffers by contrast. By comparison 
with the opportunism and pliability of the 
average politician, the Wilson tenacity of pur- 
pose inevitably takes on the look and feel of 
granite. 

Mental habits have a clutch as strong as the 
physical. As time went by, with increasing 
necessity for husbanding hours and energy, 
it was easy to see the growing dominance of the 

33 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

intellectual factor in the President's equation. 
He came more and more to view every problem 
mentally, to look into the minds of men rather 
than into the hearts of men. America possessed 
him to the exclusion of Americans, and in 
increasing degree he gave his thought to the 
people as a whole rather than to individuals. 
A revolt against the charlatanism of politics, 
with its emphasis on palliatives, gave intensity 
to his search for causes and cures. On every 
side he saw politicians and papers trying to 
content people with thrills, and his determina- 
tion grew to make people think. With his 
mastery of language, his rare ability to give 
words poignancy as well as point, it would have 
been easy for him to dramatize himself, but he 
shrank from this usual political trick as unutter- 
ably cheap, wholly unworthy. On his trip in 
support of the League of Nations, for instance, 
it was suggested to him that it might be well to 
"warm up a bit," and his answer was an indig- 
nant refusal to "capitalize the dead." 

It was a course that had no other end than 
unpopularity, for the American people prefer to 
confine the business of thinking to their own 
personal affairs. When they turn to politics 
it is for amusement, for excitement, for indigna- 
tion, but never for intellectual activity. The 
President, by his continual appeals to mentality 
rather than to the emotions, became a trial. 
The war, with its opportunity for intense feeling, 
saved him from actual disfavor for a while, but 
the reactions of the armistice sealed his doom. 
People turned back definitely and irritatedly 

34 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

to their own personal concerns, and the continued 
insistence of the President upon national and 
international affairs both bored and angered. 
Couldn't he see that they were busy! Yet only 
the President has lost. Every word that he 
said, every appeal that he cried, has found a 
lodgment in the hearts and minds of the men and 
women of the United States, and while they may 
disHke him for making them thinky the thinking 
is being done. He has been, in truth, a school- 
master, and not all that we get from a teacher 
ever softens humanity's curious resentment at 
having to be taught. 

Such a type was naturally disappointing to 
the newspapers, and this disappointment is 
at the heart of the "aloofness'' that grew up 
between the President and the Washington 
correspondents. They wanted drama and he 
refused to furnish it. They wanted something 
that would lend itself to "scareheads" and he 
responded with an "exposition." In the first 
years of his administration the President received 
the correspondents regularly. He talked to 
them with the utmost freedom, and the discon- 
tinuance of the interviews was not based upon 
any violation of confidence, but upon his con- 
viction of their futility. In the group that would 
stand before him were men of high character 
and briUiant attainments, able to talk and 
think on terms of equality with any statesman 
or great executive. Also in the group, however, 
were immature boys, ignorant of life in any of 
its larger aspects and unconcerned with issues 
since they were without knowledge of them. 
4 35 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

These undeveloped minds played with small 
things and put continual emphasis upon them. 
They were more interested in the sheep on the 
White House lawn than in any analysis of 
policy, more eager to find out what the President 
had for dinner than to receive the explanation 
of a proposed law. 

The principal distaste of the President, how- 
ever, was based upon what he termed "con- 
jectural journalism." He felt that the press 
was not interested in what had happened, or 
what would happen, but only in what might 
happen. As he phrased it, their idea of news 
was "the satisfaction of curiosity." Every one 
will admit the folly of taking the eggs from 
under a hen every five minutes in order to note 
the process of incubation, yet when great ques- 
tions of domestic or international import are 
in process of settlement, the press insists upon 
its right to examine them at every stage of the 
hatching process. This claim was abhorrent 
to the orderly habits of the Wilson mind, with 
its regard for established facts, and it became 
his battle to conceal decisions until they were 
completely formed. At Paris, as in Washing- 
ton, much of the complaint of press and politi- 
cians was due to the President's refusal to 
guess. 

Once he might have taken a chance on the 
hazards of "conjecture," once he might have 
endured stupidity, selfishness, low thinking, and 
time-wasting, once he might have thought in 
terms of personal popularity or partizan ad- 
vantage, but if ever there was such a time, 

36 



THE MAN AND THE PRESIDENT 

it was before he became the President of the 
United States, a time before he sat face to face 
with America, heard her call and saw her needs. 
What happened to Woodrow Wilson was the ( 
thing that happened to Lincoln, that happened i 
to Washington — the dream of a race, the spiritual I 
passions of a people, the necessities of menaced I 
liberties, joined to lift him from the homely ) 
companionships of the average to the loneliness \ 
of the type. 

What is America, after all — not the America 
that we sing when the verses are remembered — 
but the America that is in the hearts of men, 
that is the hope of mothers, the inheritance of 
children? It is a light that has never failed 
since first it rose, a dream of ideals more glorious 
than armies, a vision of struggle against the 
injustices of life, a working theory of spiritual 
progress that shall make to-morrow finer and 
better than to-day. 

No people in all history were ever less con- 
cerned with the material. Money is merely the 
symbol of achievement; our passion is progress, 
and high endeavor our happiness. At once 
pacific and militant, incurably religious yet in- 
cessantly questing, clamorously emotional but 
hard and shrewd withal, conservative and revo- 
lutionary in the same breath, curiously sophisti- 
cated and unalterably naive, freedom is the one /^' 
note that brings every discord into harmony. 
Controlled by a law of averages for the most 
part, giving mediocrity an easy indulgence, it is 
only when danger reaches down to the soul of 
America that the type is demanded and evolved. 

37 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

And well for these great souls if, like Lincoln, 
they pass on in the moment of supreme achieve- 
ment, for there is nothing more cruel, more 
savage, than a people's reaction from high 
emotionalism. 



II 

NEUTRALITY 

THE peace tangle will not unravel unless re- 
lated to war aims, and war aims stand 
unsupported and somewhat overstrained unless 
related to the various emotional stages that 
marked the period of our neutrality. The web 
of confusion in which the nation struggles is no 
simple skein, but a complicated weave of every 
falsehood and prejudice evolved by the political 
and spiritual upheavals of the last six years. 

One has only to read the public prints of 1914 
to realize how entirely the Great War took 
America by surprise. Such a sudden, unpro- 
voked assault on the ideals of civilization was 
not only incomprehensible to us, but almost 
incredible. Naturally, well-nigh instinctively, 
the mind of the nation reacted on the instant to 
old habits of thought and famiUar courses of 
action. 

More than any other tradition or policy, the 
gospel of democracy declared by James Monroe 
has dominated the expanding life of America. 
Flung at the monarchies of Europe in 1823 as a 
grim ultimatum that their interference in the 
political affairs of the New World would be 
resisted to the death, it was equally our promise 
not to interfere in the wars and disputes of the 

39 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Old World. At the time no more than a simple 
warning, it grew in the popular mind to be an 
expression of national independence, the great 
foundation stone in the wall of American safety. 
It was at all times questionable whether we 
could have upheld the famous Doctrine in event 
of attack, but there was never a moment when 
the country would not have taken arms in its 
defense. The cables, the wireless, fast mails, 
and the growth of foreign trade all joined to 
end the isolation that was the very heart of the 
policy, but changed conditions had no power to 
weaken faith in its desirability and importance. 
Even in the Hague Conference of 1899 the dele- 
gates of the United States signed the arbitration 
convention with this proviso: 

Nothing contained in this convention shall be so con- 
strued as to require the United States of America to depart 
from its traditional policy of not intruding upon, interfering 
with, or entangling itself in the political questions or policy 
or internal administration of any foreign state; nor shall 
anything contained in the said convention be construed 
to imply a relinquishment by the Utiited States of America 
of its traditional attitude toward purely American questions. 

We sent delegates to the Algeciras Conference 
called in 1906 to adjust the affairs of Morocco, 
but while approving the arrangement that re- 
sulted, we disclaimed any responsibility for the 
enforcement of the treaty provisions that guaran- 
teed the independence and integrity of Morocco. 
Five years later, when these guaranties were 
ruthlessly set aside, we aflBirmed our traditional 
attitude by refusal to enter protest. 

Another great American tradition, second in 

40 



NEUTRALITY 

our hearts only to the Monroe Doctrine, was the 
advocacy of arbitration as a substitute for war. 
From the day that the thirteen original states 
agreed to abide by the decisions of a federal tri- 
bunal, Americans have had the conviction that 
similar agreements on the part of nations would 
achieve similar results. It was this plan of 
judicial settlements, rather than military de- 
cisions, that we took to The Hague in 1899 and 
again in 1907, and that we failed in our purpose 
was entirely due to the resistance of the German 
and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Defeated in 
our purpose, as far as international concert was 
concerned, our enthusiasm suffered no abate- 
ment. To nation after nation we carried our 
statement of aims, and by 1914 we had effected 
dual arbitration treaties with thirty countries, 
twenty of which had been duly ratified and 
proclaimed. 

These traditions, these aspirations, were as 
much a part of American life as the breath of 
the body, and the President spoke for a whole 
people when he issued his proclamation of neu- 
trality on August 4th, supporting it later in these 
noble words: 

Every man who really loves America will act and speak 
in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of im- 
partiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned. 
... It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay 
it. Such divisions among us . . . might seriously stand 
in the way of the proper performance of our duty as the 
one great nation at peace, the one people holding itself 
ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak 
counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partizan, 
but as a friend. 

41 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

This thought, springing inevitably from the 
American faith in arbitration, our horror of war, 
dominated all of the President's earlier speeches, 
and the response of the country was sincere. 
Not at the time, nor for months, was any Amer- 
ican right assailed, and the whole dispute seemed 
entirely European. It was not until a full year 
had passed that the full tragedy of Germany's 
treatment of Belgium burned into the con- 
sciousness of the United States, and it was an 
even longer period before the full purpose of the 
Imperial German government dawned upon the 
democratic mind. 

It is one of the paradoxes of politics that those 
partizans who attack the League of Nations 
because it carries the danger of American en- 
tanglement in European affairs also declare in 
the same breath that America was shamed and 
betrayed by the President's refusal to thrust 
America into the World War at the time of Bel- 
gium's invasion. It is this falsity that must be 
considered at the very outset, for it is respon- 
sible for much of the prejudice that clouds 
judgment. 

The answer is simple and does not admit of 
challenge. It is not the right of the President 
of the United States to declare war, the Constitu- 
tion of the United States vesting that power in 
Congress absolutely and entirely. No con- 
straint of any kind rested upon Senator or 
Representative. It was the privilege of any 
single member of Congress to introduce a war 
resolution or to ask a protest. This power was 
not exercised. No resolution was introduced. 

42 



NEUTRALITY 

Neither at the time of the German invasion of 
Belgium nor during the first year of the German 
occupation was war or protest even suggested 
in Congress or out of it. 

Speaking on February i6, 1916, EHhu Root, 
then a full-fledged presidential candidate, as- 
serted that "the American people are entitled 
not merely to feel, but to speak concerning the 
wrong done to Belgium. The law protecting 
Belgium which was violated was our law and the 
law of every other civilized nation." Better 
than any one else Elihu Root knew that the 
United States was bound by neither law nor 
treaty. The Hague Declaration that the "ter- 
ritory of neutral powers is inviolable'' contained 
no means of enforcement, and, as far as 1914 was 
concerned, nullified itself entirely by Article 20: 
"The provisions of the present Convention do 
not apply except as between contracting parties, 
and then only if all the belligerents are parties to 
the Convention.'* Neither Great Britain nor 
Serbia ever ratified the convention. What is 
even more to the point, Mr. Root was in the 
Senate for one year and six months after the 
invasion of Belgium and not once during that 
time did he open his mouth to suggest a protest. 

As for Mr. Roosevelt, who devoted the latter 
part of 191 5 and the first six months of 1916 to 
attacking President Wilson for his failure to pro- 
test in the matter of Belgium, the following 
article from his pen appeared in The Outlook 
under date of September 23, 1915: 

A deputation of Belgians has arrived in this country to 
invoke our assistance in the time of their dreadful need. 

43 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

What action our government can or will take I know not. 
It has been announced that no action can be taken that will 
interfere with our entire neutrality. It is certainly emi- 
nently desirable that we should remain entirely neutral and 
nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our 
neutrality and taking sides one way or the other. 

Neutrality, however, argued no surrender 
whatsoever of American rights. In this con- 
nection, disputes with Great Britain gave small 
occasion for real alarm, as the existence of a 
treaty provided means of peaceful adjustment. 
Such was not the case with the Imperial German 
government, which had specifically and repeat- 
edly refused to enter into arbitration agreements 
with us. It was apparent, therefore, that dis- 
sensions arising between the United States and 
Germany held promise of grave danger, for 
diplomatic conversations, ineffective at best, 
are hopeless unless exchanged in good faith. 
The absence of this good faith was made mani- 
fest at the very outset by the organized German 
attempt to arouse outcry against our sale of 
munitions to the Allies. 

The contention was dishonest, for as recently 
as the Balkan wars of 191 2 and 1913 both 
Germany and Austria had sold munitions to 
the belligerents. Their appeals to us, therefore, 
"were not to observe international law, but to 
revise it in their interest." The stand taken 
by the United States was consistent not only 
with international law and traditional policy, 
but also with obvious common sense. For, as 
we pointed out, "if we had refused to sell 
munitions to belligerents we could never in 

44 



NEUTRALITY 

time of a war of our own obtain munitions from 
neutrals, and the nation which had accumulated 
the largest reserves of war-supplies in time of 
peace would be assured of victory. The mili- 
tarist state that invested its money in arsenals 
would be at a fatal advantage over the free 
people who invested their wealth in schools. 
To write into international law that neutrals 
should not trade in munitions would be to hand 
over the world to the rule of the nation with the 
largest armament factories. Such a policy the 
United States of America could not accept.''^ 

This dispute, and others like it, however, were 
merely irritating when compared to the dyna- 
mite contained in another historic tradition. 
Only second to the Monroe Doctrine has been 
our deep and continuing interest in the "freedom 
of the seas." In the early days of the Republic, 
long before the West opened its rich resources 
to our energies, we sought prosperity in the 
ocean lanes, and America's fast clipper ships 
carried our expanding commerce to every corner 
of the world. As a consequence, the law of the 
seas was of vital interest to us, and from the 
very outset our diplomacy has had a just mari- 
time code as one of its principal objectives. 
At every point in history we denied the theory 
that any nations possessed proprietary rights 
in world waters, and entered invariable protest 
against all policies of belligerents that abridged 
the rights of neutrals to sail the seas in peace and 
independence. 

As in the case of the Monroe Doctrine, the 

^ How the War Came to America. 

45 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

** freedom of the seas" was a gospel that we were 
at all times ready to defend with our lives and 
fortunes. The civil wars of the Barbary States 
were of small interest to us, but when their 
piracies limited the liberties of ocean traffic we 
declared war against them. Napoleon's cam- 
paigns were interesting to us only as news, 
but his continental blockade struck down our 
sea rights, and in 1798 we drove our navy 
against the privateers of France and called 
Washington from his retirement to take com- 
mand of the army. England's war against 
France could be viewed with indifference, but 
British Orders in Council affected the lives of our 
citizens instantly and disastrously, and in 181 2 
we took arms in defense of the freedom of the 
seas. 

The typical Americanism of^ the President 
reacted to this American tradition even as to 
the Monroe Doctrine, and as early as August 6, 
1 914, he sounded a sharp warning to the belliger- 
ents, despatching an identical note to all of them 
in which attention was called to the sea rights 
of neutrals. Again on February 10, 191 5, as a 
result of Germany's proclamation of a war zone 
around the British Isles, President Wilson in- 
formed the German government that "if the 
commanders of German vessels of war should 
act upon the presumption that the flag of the 
United States was not being used in good faith 
and should destroy on the high seas an American 
vessel or the lives of American citizens, it would 
be difficult for the government of the United 
States to view the act in any other light than 

46 



NEUTRALITY 

as an indefensible violation of neutral rights, 
. . . the government of the United States would 
be constrained to hold the Imperial German 
government to a strict accountability for such 
acts of their naval authorities and to take any 
steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard 
American lives and property and to secure to 
American citizens the full enjoyment of their 
acknowledged rights on the high seas/' 

Also on March 30, 191 5, a long note was sent 
to the British government, protesting against the 
Order in Council of March 15th that we held to be 
"a practical assertion of unlimited belligerent 
rights over neutral commerce within the whole 
European area, and an almost unqualified denial 
of the sovereign rights of the nations now at 
peace/' In note after note we laid down our 
ancient claim that the high seas are common 
territory to every nation. 

As a matter of fact our grievances against Eng- 
land were far more acute than those against 
Germany when the sinking of the Lusitania 
worked its tremendous revulsion in public 
feeling. Even before this tragedy, however, 
the mind of the President had freed itself from 
the shackles of tradition. Just as our interest 
in the seas had forced us into every great war, 
so was it a certainty that we would be drawn 
into the conflict then raging. Our "isolation," 
never anything more than fancied, was finally a 
proved absurdity. As for the Monroe Doctrine, 
German victory meant its surrender or else its 
defense by armed force. These truths stood 
plain to the President, but with vision no less 

47 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

clear he saw also that American unity was no 
longer a substance, but a shadow, and that 
through the careless years great forces of disin- 
tegration had been permitted to work at will. 
Glib references to the "melting-pot" instead of 
some sane and continuous process of assimilation; 
intelligent nationalism split into parochial rival- 
ries by the dangerous growth of sectionalism. 

In the days of the Colonies the Atlantic sea- 
board was America, but in the twentieth century 
it cannot truthfully be looked upon as other than 
a fringe. It is between the Alleghanies and the 
Rockies that the real America lies — an America 
careless of Eastern opinion when it is not con- 
temptuous. New England and New York might 
wax hysterical over a European war, but the 
great Middle West went its way in indifference. 
Added to a very intense belief that war was a 
medieval madness, one found also a very definite 
pro-Germanism. Great centers like Milwaukee, 
St. Louis, and Chicago were, in many respects, 
as Teutonic as Berlin, and from these cities 
poured a steady stream of propaganda that 
subtly influenced public opinion in favor of the 
German cause. It is to be remembered that 
Congress, the war-making body, took no action 
whatsoever as a result of the Lusitania tragedy, 
and that press and politicians, while condem- 
natory indeed, divided sharply on the abstract 
issue. The infamous German charge that the 
Lusitania carried ammunition "destined for the 
destruction of brave German soldiers" found 
many supporters, and from the Middle West 
actually came the suggestion that Americans 

48 



NEUTRALITY 

ought to keep ofF the sea. Slowly but surely 
the President addressed himself to the discovery 
of truth and the affirmation of ideals in the 
interests of American unity. 

The feeling that great issues were at stake 
was not enough. There had to be the burning 
conviction that those issues and their proper 
solution were bound up with the permanent 
safety of America here and now and forever. 
War might come as a result of some outburst 
of national feeling, but national passions and 
hatred were without the necessary carrying 
power. The imperative thing was such deep 
understanding of national ideals as would fur- 
nish unity and indomitableness throughout the 
days, perhaps the years, of suffering and sacri- 
fice — an understanding that would reach down 
to the souls of one hundred millions, cross 
sectioning race and creed and circumstance, 
firing all with a common faith. One has only to 
read the President's notes to follow the mighty 
drive of an inflexible purpose. Fools laughed at 
them, but they will stand for all time as mile- 
stones in America's longest march to the heights. 

In the first Lusitania note, dated May i, 191 5, 
we stated plainly that "the Imperial German 
government will not expect the government of 
the United States to omit any word or any act" 
to safeguard our rights. In the note of June 
9th we said: "Whatever be the other facts 
regarding the Lusitania, the principal fact is 
that a great steamer, primarily and chiefly a 
conveyance for passengers, and carrying more 
than a thousand souls that had no part or lot in 

49 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the conduct of the war, was sunk without so 
much as a challenge or a warning, and that men, 
women, and children were sent to their death in 
circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare. 
The government of the United States is con- 
tending for something much greater than mere 
rights of property or privileges of commerce. 
It is contending for nothing less high and sacred 
than the rights of humanity." 

In the third note, dated July 2 1st, it was as- 
serted clearly that "the repetition of certain 
acts must be regarded by the government of 
the United States, when they affect American 
citizens, as deliberately unfriendly.'* 

On September 1st the Imperial German govern- 
ment gave assurance that its submarines would 
sink no more liners without warning, seemingly 
a notable victory for international law as well 
as for America. The President, however, realized 
that the assurance rested entirely upon the 
honor of Germany, having no basis in legal 
agreement. On January i8, 1916, he set forth 
a declaration of principles regarding submarine 
attacks and asked assent to them by the warring 
nations. The German answer was a curt notice 
to all neutral powers that armed merchant- 
ships would be treated as war-ships and sunk 
without warning. Instantly and with unparalleled 
vigor the German propaganda organization 
in the United States commenced a campaign 
to gain popular support for the policy. 

America's unreadiness for war was never more 
apparent than at this moment. The old cry 
against "traffic in human lives" was revived, 

SO 



NEUTRALITY 

and powerful political and business groups 
went so far as to urge the President to advise 
American citizens not to travel on armed mer- 
chant-ships. Mr. Bryan and the West censured 
the administration for being too militaristic, 
while Mr. Roosevelt and the Atlantic seaboard 
attacked on the ground of ultra-pacifism. The 
President's answer was specific assertion of the 
right of commercial vessels to carry arms in 
self-defense, and an equally explicit refusal to 
consent to the amazing theory that Americans 
had no right on the sea that Germany was 
bound to respect. 

At every point in the proceedings there was 
clear evidence of Germany's conviction that the 
United States stood helpless by reason of our 
high percentage of citizens of German birth or 
descent. Relying upon the immunity afforded 
by this presumption of disloyalty, and in abso- 
lute defiance of the Lusitania pledge, a submarine 
torpedoed the Sussex without warning on March 
24th, killing and wounding American citizens. 
The shot at Concord was no more explicit than 
the ultimatum of the President that unless 
Germany abandoned such methods of submarine 
warfare diplomatic relations would be severed 
at once. His speech before Congress was a 
more terrible arraignment of Germany than had 
yet been put in words, and under the scourge 
of this reprobation Berlin cowered and sur- 
rendered. Acknowledging their guilt in the 
matter of the Sussex, the Germans gave pledges 
that met the main demands of the United States. 

There was nothing conclusive in such a settle- 
5 SI 



THE WAE,, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

xnent, however. The Kaiser meant k as a 
truce, and the President so recognized it. Even 
as BerHn rallied its American sympathizers to 
defeat his re-election, so did the President pro- 
ceed to prepare for the grapple of principles 
that he now felt to be inevitable. Speaking 
before the League to Enforce Peace on May 27, 
1916, he called upon the people to face facts 
even as he himself had been compelled to face 
them. After conclusive establishment of the 
truth that America no longer enjoyed a " detached 
and distant situation," that our "isolation" 
was fancied, not real, he declared that the nation 
must stand prepared to assume the authorities 
and responsibilities of a world power, and set 
forth this new article of faith : 

So sincerely do we believe these things that I am sure 
that I speak the mind and wish of the people of America 
when I say that the United States is willing to become a 
partner in any feasible association of nations formed in 
order to realize these objects and make them secure against 
violation. 

Again speaks the typical Americanism of the 
man. Though bound by tradition as firmly as 
any ancient people, it is the salvation of America 
that we have the courage to blaze new trails 
when it is seen that the old paths are no longer 
trustworthy. Prior to 1916 the address of the 
President would have shocked and alienated, 
but, viewed in the red light that flowed from 
the battle-fields of Europe, it was recognized as 
truth. The approval of the nation marked the 
beginning of America's surrender of the illusion 
^f isolation, the dawn of America's realization 

52 



NEUTRALITY 

that freedom of the seas could not be separated 
from freedom of the land, and that the world 
peace of our dreams depended on our wiUingness 
to enter into a world partnership for the preser- 
vation of that peace. From this time on the 
speeches of the President were marked by 
certainty. He felt that he was not merely a 
leader, but a spokesman; that he was not sup- 
plying impulse, but receiving it. Throughout the 
whole of 191 6 his words had the ring of a clarion: 

We are not going to invade any nation's right, but sup- 
pose, my fellow-countrymen, some nation should invade 
our right? What then? ... I have come here to tell you 
that the difficulties of our foreign policy . . . daily increase 
in number and intricacy and in danger, and I would be 
derelict to my duty to you if I did not deal with you in 
these matters with the utmost candor, and tell you what it 
may be necessary to use the force of the United States to do. 

• •••••• 

America up to the present time has been, as if by de- 
liberate choice, confined and provincial, and it will be 
impossible for her to remain confined and provincial. 
Henceforth she belongs to the world and must act as part 
of the world. 

• •••••• 

The United States will never be what it has been. The 
United States was once in enjoyment of what we used to 
call splendid isolation. . . . And now, by circumstances 
which she did not choose, over which she had not control, 
she has been thrust out into the great game of mankind, 
on the stage of the world itself, and here she must know 
what she is about, and no nation in the world must doubt 
that all her forces are gathered and organized in the interest 
of just, righteous, and humane government. 

The issues of the election were clean-cut. 
Germany was under no delusion. Berlin knew 

53 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

that the President had come at last to exact 
appreciation of Potsdam's plan of world con- 
quest and meant to array the strength of democ- 
racy against it. Every force that German money 
and influence could control was hurled into the 
campaign against the President, but the people 
were no less aroused to the issues involved and 
Americanism triumphed over partizanship. 

The march of events was swift and logical. 
On December i8, 1916, the President addressed 
a note to the belligerent nations in which he 
pointed out that each side claimed to be fighting 
a defensive war; each side asserted interest in 
the rights of small nations; each side declared 
itself to be "ready to consider the formation of a 
league of nations to insure peace and justice 
throughout the world." As the objects for 
which both sides were fighting, "stated in 
general terms . . . seem to be the same," the 
President asked the belligerent powers if it 
would not be possible for them to avow the 
"precise objects which would, if attained, satisfy 
them and their people." He justified the re- 
quest by stating that America was "as vitally 
and directly interested as the governments now 
at war" in the "measures to be taken to secure 
the future peace of the world." 

The reception of this note will be recorded by 
historians as a proof of how far the statesman- 
ship of the modern world had fallen away from 
intelligence. Partizans in America berated the 
communication as a shameful confession of 
ignorance, regarding it as nothing more than an 
effort to "find out what the war was about." 

54 



NEUTRALITY 

The British and French spokesmen, as well as 
the press of the two nations, were shocked at 
what seemed an exhibition of cold-blooded im- 
partiality. Yet nothing was more obvious than 
that the note was written directly at Ger- 
many, and that under the palm branch gleamed 
a naked sword. The President was not trying 
to "find out what the war was about," but the 
terms on which the belligerents would he willing to 
end it. The terms of the Allies had been stated 
repeatedly and frankly and were well known. 
Germany, on the other hand, had dealt entirely 
in vague generalities, sometimes threatening, 
sometimes mawkishly pathetic. It was the de- 
termination of the President to drive them out 
into the open. As plain as words could make it, 
the note denied any purpose of mediation and 
demanded information that would permit us to 
frame a definite, conclusive policy. America 
could stay out no longer; America did not wish 
to stay out longer. Our search was for worthy 
comrades in a battle to the death between 
opposed ideals. 

The whole of the President's supreme states- 
manship had run to this tremendous moment. 
Something that the bayonets of the AlHes had 
not been able to do his words had done: Ger- 
many was at hay. Two decisions, and two only, 
were presented to the Kaiser for his choice. 
He could continue silent or evasive, confessing 
guilt of blood and guilt of plan, thereby forcing 
a united America into the war against him, or he 
could have cried "Peace" in a voice great enough 
to reach that Heaven against which he had 

55 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

sinned. Not in all the annals of humanity were 
a people ever given so wonderful an opportunity 
for spiritual and physical redemption. What if 
Germany had said: "Let the guns be silenced. 
We are sick of our struggle, sick of ambitions that 
we now see to be cruel and impossible. Let us 
order a new world and build it on the rock founda- 
tions of justice and brotherhood. We stand 
ready to pay for the damage done in France and 
Belgium. We will right the wrongs of Alsace 
and Lorraine and acknowledge the national 
aspirations of the Poles, the Czechs, and the 
Serbs. We want the burden of militarism lifted 
from our backs and from the back of humanity, 
and we offer our partnership in a league of 
nations.'^ 

Not in all the Central Powers, however, was 
there one statesman with the vision to see the 
necessity or the splendor of such an answer. 
Drunk with success, confident in the power of 
their tribal god, and resolute in their mad dream 
of world conquest, the military masters of 
Germany replied in their usual terms of vague- 
ness and evasiveness. Going before the Senate 
on January 22d, the President discussed the 
answers to his notes, and every sentence of that 
discussion was an arraignment of the German 
pretensions, a recognition that the Allied gov- 
ernments had come to stand for liberty and hu- 
man aspiration. The people had watched; the 
people understood. War was not only a ques- 
tion of time and German arrogance. The 
expression was not long delayed. On January 
31, 191 7, Berlin officially notified the Unked 

S6 



NEUTRALITY 

States that "from February i, 1917, sea traffic 
will be stopped with every available weapon 
and without further notice." We were told 
that American passenger-steamers could con- 
tinue their sailings undisturbed only on condi- 
tion of following certain lines to certain ports 
and "bearing on hull and superstructure three 
vertical stripes, eight meters wide, each to be 
painted alternately white and red." 

With rare shamelessness, the German Chan- 
cellor informed the Imperial Diet that the reason 
this ruthless poHcy had not been employed 
earlier was simply because the navy wanted 
to wait until more submarines had been built. 
Our action was instant. On February 3d the 
German ambassador was dismissed and diplo- 
matic relations severed. 

Slowly but surely the President had led the 
people to high ground demanded by old ideals and 
new needs. The filibuster of the ** fourteen 
wilful men" had power to kill the armed- 
neutrality bill, and the McLemore resolution, 
warning Americans not to travel on armed 
merchant-ships, managed to muster one hundred 
and fifty-two votes, but these were the last 
gasps of the congressional group that drew its 
inspiration from blind pacifists and German 
disloyalists. Devotion to peace had been proved 
by an unparalleled patience. The President's 
complete unmasking of the German plan had 
given us unity, and the people saw at last that 
the war was not only a war of self-defense, but 
a logical continuation of the American struggle 
that started in 1776. 

57 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

The popular response to the war message of 
April 2d was a fulfilment of the President's 
prophecy that ** There will come that day when 
the world will say, 'This America that we 
thought was full of a multitude of contrary 
counsels now speaks with the great volume of 
the heart's accord, and that great heart of 
America has behind it the supreme moral force 
of righteousness and hope and the liberty of 
mankind.'" 



Ill 



*' STRONG men" 



THE sweep of a century leaves nothing remem- 
bered but fundamentals and a few great 
names. Historians, writing of events that time 
has withered until only the fadeless essentials 
remain, are not concerned with the living pas- 
sions that colored and confused those events 
in the day of their happening. A contemporary 
chronicler may take no such privilege, for he 
deals with the ferment rather than the solution, 
and must treat of things in their present im- 
portance without waiting until the years have 
settled the question of relative value. History 
can afford to be a concentration of the impersonal 
and important, but life, as it runs along from 
day to day, is made up of little things, and 
public opinion of the moment is more controlled 
by passing rages, clashing vanities, and the 
hour's excitement than by the larger purposes 
that do not reveal themselves until the winds 
of time have blown away the smoke and ashes 
of the human struggle. 

America's war rush and overwhelming vic- 
tory, the Peace Treaty, and the League of 
Nations, will stand alone before the future, 
but to-day they move obscurely through clouds 
of confusion, and it is idle to consider them 

59 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

until some attempt has been made to settle 
the yeasty ferment of angers and resentments. 
I Such matters as the failure to form a coalition 
Cabinet, the refusal to permit Mr. Roosevelt 
to go to France, the case of General Wood, and 
the President's "partizan appeal," while tran- 
sient and trivial in comparison with the great 
issues of the day, nevertheless cloud these 
larger questions to an extent that demands 
attention. 

The War Message haa not ceased to echo before 
the cry for "strong men" burst upon the ears of 
the President. Raised by Republican poli- 
ticians as an opening wedge in the drive for a 
bipartizan government, it was nevertheless a 
slogan of direct appeal to the millions of Amer- 
icans who were girding themselves for service, 
and who wanted the assurance that civilian 
leadership was to be no less expert than the mili- 
tary direction itself. Because a coalition Cab- 
inet was not formed, the feeling grew that the 
President meant to "play a lone hand," a par- 
tizan hand, and its persistence as a conviction 
is at the bottom of much of the ugly anger that 
imperils our unity to-day. 

It was, and is, a confusion that proceeds from 
the unfortunate fact that the great majority of 
Americans are as little familiar with their govern- 
ment as with their history. Because of this 
ignorance concerning plain facts of administra- 
tion it was the general opinion that the Presi- 
dent's refusal to form a coalition Cabinet was 
due to a dislike of "counsel," an unwillingness 
to subject himself to the independences of "ad- 

60 



** STRONG MEN" 

vice" that might result from the Inclusion of 
Republicans in his "official family." Cabinet 
members are in no sense counselors or advisers 
to the President, nor have they ever been. They 
are the real executives of the administration, 
each one the head of a department with exact 
duties to discharge, and coming into regular 
contact with the President only for purposes of 
report, conference, and cohesion. The Presi- 
dent has the responsibility, but his Cabinet 
members have the power. If they fail him in 
faith, in loyalty, in understanding, or even in 
agreement, his reputation and regime are alike 
endangered. 

Because of the general ignorance concerning 
history, it is the wide-spread opinion that co- 
alition Cabinets are customary in times of 
stress and that the idea has the indorsement 
of efficiency. Both assumptions are groundless. 
When urged to take Democrats into his Cabinet | 
in 1898, President McKinley refused flatly. \ 
No less than Woodrow Wilson he had read his 
history and knew that the first need of a war 
President was a working-force trained in team- 
play, a close association of trusted lieutenants, 
not a sudden importation of strange captains. 
Nor did Lincoln call a coalition Cabinet into 
being. Yet even though all were members of 
his own party, he paid a bitter penalty for having \ 
selected them with reference to factional divi- / 
sions rather than in accord with his own prefer- j 
ences. The "strong men" of his official family ( 
were of such abounding strength that each \ 
imagined himself the President, and utter dis- L 

61 / 



TKE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

organization was averted only by Mr. Lincoln's 
decision to assert his right to unquestioned 
obedience. 

"We pretend to no state secrets," said the 
New York Evening Post in 1862, "but we have 
been told, upon what we deem good authority, 
that no such thing as a combined, unitary, de- 
liberative administration exists; that the Presi- 
dent's brave willingness to take all responsibility 
has quite neutralized the idea of a joint respon- 
sibility; and that orders of the highest impor- 
tance are issued, and movements commanded, 
which Cabinet officers learn of as other people 
do, or, what is worse, which the Cabinet officers 
disapprove and protest against." 

Washington, alone of all the Presidents, en- 
joyed the peculiar privileges of a coalition 
Cabinet, for when he assumed the direction of 
the new Republic it was his feeling that all po- 
litical faiths should have fair representation. 
As a result, Hamilton and Jefferson, opposed in 
every thought and principle, were handcuffed 
together, and their pull and haul came close to 
swamping the frail bark of government. Do- 
mestic policies waited while the two factions 
fought, and international relations fell into new 
discords while Washington studied as to how he 
should decide between the conflicting recom- 
mendations of the two rivals. Peace came only 
when Jefferson resigned to lead the party that 
was to carry his beliefs to victory. 

Even if government and history both be put 
aside, however, a third and stronger reason is at 
hand to prove the impossibility of a coalition 

62 



"STRONG MEN** 

Cabinet. It must be admitted, as a matter of 
course, that a prime requisite in the choice of the 
new men was general agreement as to their 
suitabiHty. It would not have been enough for 
the President to say, "These are strong men/' 
Judgment of their strength was primarily the 
province of the Republican party, and second- 
arily the right of the country as a whole. The 
demand for a coalition Cabinet was not the de- 
mand of the President, and therefore his idea of 
what constituted "strong men" was read out of 
court at the start. 

What figures, then, stood out so boldly from 
the rank and file of the Republican party as to 
make their selection a thing of unanimous 
applause, a choice by acclamation? The poverty 
of America's public service was never more 
apparent than when such a search began. An 
interesting essay could, and should, be written 
on the reasons, but for the purposes of this 
consideration they may be stated briefly. Our 
pubhc life dooms itself to mediocrity because 
it offers neither reward nor honor. Alexander 
Hamilton, studying the results achieved by the 
unpaid public service of England, grafted the 
British plan upon our own governmental plant. 
In England, however, there was a leisure class, 
inheritors of wealth and idleness, able and 
willing to serve without pay as some sort of 
justification for their existence. In the New 
World it was as headless a proposition as sane 
men ever advanced. Lacking a leisure class, 
unpaid positions and nominal salaries either 
invited chicane or compelled impoverishment. 

63 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

To take a case in point, a member of Congress 
receives compensation in the sum of ^8,000 a 
year. Out of this salary he is expected to live 
and entertain and also to provide the expenses 
of a never-ending campaign. Elected for two 
years only, the wretched man is forced to com- 
mence "running" again within a day of his 
election. As an indication of expense the 
campaign for the re-election of the Speaker 
of the New York State Assembly — a ^1,500 
office — cost ^29,000. 

These conditions have forced the party or- 
ganization into complete power. Naturally 
enough, since it furnishes the funds and the 
"workers," it exercises the privilege of selection, 
and still more naturally its preference is for 
"grateful" men. The average officeholder, 
therefore, is of the type that is willing to act as 
a combination errand-boy and patronage broker. 
Now and then a Lincoln, a Wilson, or a Roose- 
velt is able to break through the iron alignment, 
but public office, for the most part, is the reward 
of a tireless enthusiastic "regularity." This 
theory of politics as a vast employment agency 
has its logical development in the perfection of 
slander and abuse as legitimate campaign weap- 
ons. As a result, public life has become a 
gantlet as cruel as any ever devised by savages. 
An officeholder has no rights that partizanship 
is bound to respect, and not even the common 
decencies are permitted to stand in the way 
of assault upon a candidate. Inevitably public 
life holds out its invitation chiefly to the 
mediocre or the rascal, the one so small as to 

64 



"STRONG MEN" 

be flattered by any notice, the other too shame- 
less to mind it. 

Force and administrative genius, therefore, 
by reason of the price that poHtics demands, 
have turned to private enterprise in increasing 
degree. There is no more striking characteris- 
tic of American Hfe to-day than the complete 
divorcement of politics and business so far as 
genuine public service is concerned. To be sure, 
there are certain contacts, but the very slyness 
of them, and their corrupt selfishness, has done 
as much to discredit the "business man" in the 
opinion of the electorate as it has done to 
besmirch the politician. It is a gulf that must 
and will be bridged, but it was not bridged in 
191 7, and selection of a "captain of industry" 
for the Cabinet would have forfeited the con- 
fidence of workers even as it would have aroused 
the distrust of the country as a whole. 

These remarks, offered assertively because 
briefly, may explain the poverty of public life 
that made it impossible to find "practical 
statesmen" without "anxious search or perilous 
trial." As a matter of fact, the most careful 
poll of suggestions aflPorded no larger number of 
names than could be counted on the fingers of 
two hands. Even so, not one of the list met the 
primary requisite of general acceptability. 

Colonel Roosevelt, while off'ering his services 
on the instant, was specific from the first in his 
insistence that he should be permitted to go 
to France at the head of a volunteer division 
of his own enlistment. When this request was 
denied he entered straightway upon the "broom- ) 

6s 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

stick drill" and "coffin order" tirades that did 
so much to convince neutral nations and the 
Central Powers that America would never be 
able to figure in the war in a military sense. 
Gen. Leonard Wood, now hailed as a great 
administrator, was then putting entire emphasis 
upon his military ability, and his ambition had no 
other thought than to command the American 
Expeditionary Force when it went to France. 

Mr. Taft has experienced a curious rehabilita- 
tion in the last few years, but in 1917 there was 
still keen remembrance of the fact that he had 
been denied re-election in 191 2 because of his 
proved inefficiency as an Executive. The Dol- 
liver characterization of him as a "large body 
surrounded by men who knew exactly what 
they wanted" had by no means been forgotten. 
The President Hked Mr. Taft, admired and 
trusted him, and meant to use him, as he did 
later, but not in any capacity where dynamic 
energy and quick decisions were necessities. 

As for Charles E. Hughes, the campaign of 
1916 was fresh in the minds of the people, and 
the revulsion of feeling against him, particularly 
in his own party, made it almost a certainty 
that his selection for a high executive post would 
have aroused resentment rather than enthusiasm. 
This general attitude extended also to Mr. 
William R. Willcox, chairman of the Republican 
National Committee. 

Campaign necessities, exercising their usual 
pressure, have somewhat blurred the sharp lines 
of Republican division, but in 191 7 Senator 
Lodge was a rather unimportant figure, only 

66 J 



"STRONG MEN" 

lifted above mediocrity by the conviction of the 
Progressives that he was one of the operators of 
the "steam-roller" that had crushed them in 
Chicago in 191 2. His selection at that time 
would have been resented not only by a large 
Senate group, headed by men like Kenyon, 
Norris, and Borah, but by the rank and file of 
Western Republicanism. 

All of these various objections were freely 
admitted by every person of intelligence at the 
time, and the one man able to elicit any una- 
nimity of approval was Elihu Root. As in the 
case of Mr. Taft and Senator Lodge, however, 
Mr. Root stood in the public mind as the very 
high priest of stand-pattism. He was not only 
an offense to all Democrats and RepubHcans of 
progressive thought, but no man in our public 
life is so absolutely distrusted by the workers of 
the nation. The President recognized his values 
as he recognized the values of Mr. Taft, but he 
knew in his heart, as every other sane man knew, 
that any elevation of Mr. Root to a high place 
in the war machine meant the chilling of liberal 
sentiment and the planting of an ugly doubt in 
the minds of labor. 

Curiously enough, the President himself de- 
sired certain Cabinet changes, and was preparing 
to make them when war forced a surrender of 
the plan. Mr. Lansing, elevated to be Secretary ^ 
of State at the time of Mr. Bryan's sudden 
resignation, was never anything but a disap- 
pointment. His ideas were annual, and, what 
was even worse, he approached every question 
from the standpoint of a hidebound conser- 
6 / 67 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

vatlsm. His slow mind, unwilling and unable 
to cope with the midstream of life, clung like a 
limpet to the rocks of the backwater. The 
President might have endured dullness, but Mr. 
Lansing's utter inability to think in terms of the 
twentieth century made his elimination desir- 
able. It is also probable that a change would 
have been made in the office of Attorney-General, 
for while the President had high regard for Mr. 
Gregory's honesty and ability, he felt him to be 
a legalistic type of mind lacking alike in dynamic 
values and progressivist tendencies. 

The other Cabinet members ranked high 
above the average. Mr. McAdoo's conduct of 
the Treasury had even won the grudging admira- 
tion of the country's great financiers. Secretary 
of the Interior Lane was universally popular, 
Secretary of Labor Wilson and Secretary of 
Agriculture Houston enjoyed general confidence, 
and the Postmaster-General had not yet for- 
feited popularity by his advocacy of the Postal 
Zone law or his enforcement of tne Espionage 
Act. The President knew the attack on Secre- 
tary Daniels to be malignant and unjust, and he 
had complete faith in Secretary Baker's ability 
to operate the War Department along lines of 
democracy as well as efficiency. Conditions, 
however, forced him to stand firm on the Cabijiet 
as a whole. Even had he been inclined to run 
the grave risk of intrusting departments of 
government to new men, untried men, it was 
still the case that our public life contained no 
figures sufficiently commanding to win unani- 
mous selection. Any attempt to change would 

68 



"STRONG MEN" 

have precipitated instant and bitter disputes 
between parties, factions, creeds, and classes, 
and at a time when unity and purpose were 
imperative needs the country would have been 
distracted by the pull and haul of contending 
candidacies. Not only was the President wise 
in avoiding this danger, but he was still more 
prudent in guarding against the lost time and 
waste effort that would have inevitably resulted 
from the displacement of men who, whatever 
their failings, were still in possession of four 
years of practice and experience in the conduct 
of the executive departments of government. 
As a consequence, Lansing and Gregory became 
fixtures along with the rest. 

History, however, will record that while the 
President shrank from the obvious dangers of a 
coalition Cabinet, he went beyond any other 
in the formation of a coalition administration. 
It was more than ill-advised, when Chair- 
man Hays, Senator New, and Senator Wat- 
son wrote this daring manifesto into the 
Indiana Republican platform of 1918: "This 
is the war of no political party. This is 
the country's war, and we charge and de- 
plore that the party in power is guilty of 
practising petty partizan politics to the 
serious detriment of the country's cause. We 
insist that this cease, and we appeal to all 
patriots, whatever their politics, to aid us in 
every way possible in our efforts to require 
that partizan politics be taken out and kept out 
of the war management." 

The search for "the best man for the place" 

69 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

was instituted without regard to party, faction, 
blood strain, or creed, and the result was a 
composite organization in which Democrats, 
Republicans, and Independents worked side by 
side, partizanship forgotten and service the one 
consideration. 

It stood recognized as a matter of course that 
the soldier selected to command our forces in 
France might well develop into a presidential 
possibility, yet this high place was given with- 
out question to Gen. John J. Pershing, a life- 
long Republican and the son-in-law of Senator 
Warren, one of the masters of the Republican 
machine. 

Admiral William S. Sims, a vociferous Re- 
publican, was sent to English waters in high 
command, and while Secretary Daniels was 
warned at the time that Sims's partizanship was 
of the kind that would not recognize the obliga- 
tions of loyalty or patriotism, he waved the 
objection aside out of his belief that Sims was 
"the best man for the job." 

For the head of the Aircraft Board, with its 
task of launching America's great aviation pro- 
gram, Mr. Howard E. Coffin, a Republican, was 
selected, and a*: his right hand Mr. Coffin placed 
Col. Edward A. Deeds, also a Republican of vigor 
and regularity. It is to be remembered also 
that when failure and corruption were charged 
against the Aircraft Board, the man appointed 
by the President to conduct the highly im- 
portant investigation was Charles E. Hughes. 

Three Assistant Secretaries of War were ap- 
pointed by Mr. Baker — Mr. Benedict Crowell, a 

70 



"STRONG MEN" 

Cleveland contractor; Dr. F. E. Keppel, dean of 
Columbia University, and Emmet J. Scott, 
formerly Booker Washington's secretary — and 
all three were Republicans. Mr. E. R. Stet- 
tinius of the J. P. Morgan firm and a Republican 
was made special assistant to the Secretary of 
War and placed in charge of supplies, a duty 
that he had been discharging for the Allies. 
Maj.-Gen. George W. Goethals, after his un- 
fortunate experience in ship-building, was given 
a second chance and put in the War Department 
as an assistant Chief of Staff. The Chief of 
Staff himself. Gen. Peyton C. March, was a 
Republican no less definite and regular than 
General Goethals. Mr. Samuel McRoberts, 
president of the National City Bank and one of 
the pillars of the Republican party, was brought 
to Washington as chief of the procurement sec- 
tion in the Ordnance Section, with the rank of 
brigadier-general; Maj.-Gen. E. H. Crowder was 
appointed Provost-Marshal-General, although 
his Republicanism was well known, and no ob- 
jection of any kind was made when General 
Crowder put Charles B. Warren, the Republican 
National Committeeman from Michigan, in 
charge of appeal cases, a position of rare 
^ower. 

\ The Emergency Fleet Corporation was virtu- 
ally turned over to Republicans under Charles 
M. Schwab and Charles Piez. ^Mr. Vance Mc- 
Cormick, chairman of the Democratic National 
Committee, was made chairman of the War 
Trade Board, but of the eight members the 
following five were Republicans: Albert Strauss 

71 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

of New York, Alonzo E. Taylor of Pennsylvania, 
John Beaver White of New York, Frank C. 
Munson of New York, and Clarence M. Woolley 
of Chicago. 

The same conditions obtained in the Red 
Cross. A very eminent Republican, Mr. H. P. 
Davison, was put in supreme authority, and on 
the Red Cross War Council were placed ex- 
President Taft; Mr. Charles D. Norton, Mr. 
Taft's secretary while President; and Mr. Cor- 
nelius N. Bliss, former treasurer of the Repub- 
lican National Committee. Not only was Mr. 
Taft thus'' honored, but upon the creation of a 
National War Labor Board the ex-President was 
made its chairman and virtually empowered to 
act as the administration's representative in its 
contact with industry. 

Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, a Republican of iron 
regularity, was placed in charge of the War 
Savings Stamps Campaign, and when Mr. Mc- 
Adoo had occasion to name Assistant Secretaries 
of the Treasury he selected Prof. L. S. Rowe of 
the University of Pennsylvania and Mr. H. C. 
Leffingwell of New York. 

Harry A. Garfield, son of the Republican 
President, was made Fuel Administrator, and Mr. 
Herbert Hoover, now a candidate for President 
on a platform of unadulterated Republicanism, 
was nominated as head of the Food Administra- 
tion. 

The Council of National Defense was an 
organization of high importance and one of 
tremendous influence from a partizan standpoint, 
yet its executive body was divided as follows: 

72 



"STRONG MEN" 

Republicans — Howard E. Coffin, Julius Rosen- 
wald, Dr. Hollis Godfrey, Dr. Franklin Martin, 
Walter S. GifFord, Director; Democrats — Daniel 
Willard and Bernard M. Baruch; Independent — 
Samuel Gompers. 

So much for a sorry subject that should never 
have had to be mentioned. When judged in 
accordance with the facts and the evidence, 
the war record of the administration is remark- 
ably free from the shame and stain of partizan- 
ship. Always more concerned with party ac- 
complishment than party organization, war 
worked an even more complete forgetfulness 
of party lines in President Wilson, and his spirit 
communicated itself to the entire war machinery. 
It was a tremendous thing that all were called 
to do, and in the doing of the thing there was 
thought of nothing save America. Men and 
women of every party, race, creed, and cir- 
cumstance worked side by side in Washington 
as in the trenches, fraternity in their hearts, 
the glory of sacrifice in their souls, and service 
the one rivalry. I came into direct contact 
with every detail of the vast organization, and 
my reports from the country were daily and 
authoritative, and I can say truthfully that 
throughout the year and a half of war partizan- 
ship existed as the sole and undivided possession 
of a small congressional group. 

This group, however, made up in virulence 
what it lacked in numbers. Every one con- 
nected with the drive of America's great war 
machine knew that there were two enemies to 
be fought — the Germans in front, and Penrose, 

73 



/ 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Smoot, New, Watson, Moses, and Longworth 
from behind. From first to last these wretched 
souls thought only in terms of officeholding and 
office-seeking, the sordid habits of their lives 
blinding them to America's terrible necessities. 
They tore at public confidence with their daily 
, lies, hampered executive activities by their mean 
obstructions, and broke many a spirit by their 
unscrupulous persecutions. At a time when 
every dollar was needed by the nation they com- 
menced the collection of the great campaign fund 
that was to restore the idyllic days of Hanna, and 
in an hour when the war hung in the balance 
they were sending Hays, their party chairman, 
on a coast-to-coast tour for the mobilization of 
the "machine." The decadence of American 
public life is not a matter of any argument as 
long as such men hold positions of prominence 
and power. 



IV 



"the ROOSEVELT DIVISIONS*' 



THE average American has no higher faith 
than fair play, and not supreme statesman- 
ship nor administrative genius is permitted to 
compensate for lack of generosity in the treat- 
ment of a defeated rival. At the bottom of 
much of the feeling against Woodrow Wilson — ■ 
a feeling that transfers itself unconsciously to his 
advocacies — is a general belief that the Presi- 
dent was entirely responsible for the refusal of 
Mr. Roosevelt's offer to enlist a volunteer force 
for service in France, and that his reasons were 
personal rather than public. He is judged as 
having failed in magnanimity and the resulting 
prejudice has had a wide sweep. 

As a matter of fact, Mr. Roosevelt's offer was 
never brought to the official notice of the Presi- 
dent until Mr. Roosevelt called in person, and 
Mr. Roosevelt did not present his request to 
the President until after it had been rejected 
by the Secretary of War on the recommenda- 
tions of the General Staff*. Instead of being 
moved by any personal ill will, the whole inclina- 
tion of the President was to overrule the General 
Staff in Mr. Roosevelt's favor, and even when 
he realized that the iron necessities of war forbade 

75 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

such a course he confessed a deep and sincere 
regret. 

It was on February 2, 191 7, two months before 
America entered the conflict, that Mr. Roosevelt 
first wrote to the Secretary of War, requesting 
permission to raise a division of infantry and a 
divisional brigade of cavalry. Mr. Baker, reply- 
ing under date of February 9th, and again on 
March 20th, pointed out that the enlistment 
of such divisions was expressly prohibited by 
Congress unless directly sanctioned, and stated 
also that "a plan for a very much larger army 
than the force suggested by your telegram has 
been proposed for the action of Congress when- 
ever required. Militia officers of high rank will 
naturally be incorporated with their commands, 
but the general officers for all our forces are to 
be drawn from the regular army." Mr. Roose- 
velt, answering on March 23d, made the point 
that he was "a retired commander-in-chief of 
the United States army,'^ and referred to General 
Young, General Sumner, and Leonard Wood 
for opinion as to his "fitness for the command of 
troops." 

! The plan referred to by the Secretary of War 
was based upon the principle of compulsory 
military service and every force of the adminis- 
tration was committed to it. The President, 
Mr. Baker, and the entire Cabinet, no less than 
the General Staff", were as iron in the resolve 
that the criminal wastes and inefficiencies of the 
volunteer system should not be permitted to 
discount America's determination. On April 
7th, the day after the war declaration, Mr. Baker 

76 



"THE ROOSEVELT DIVISIONS" 

informed the House Committee on Military 
Affairs that the Selective Service law was abso- 
lutely essential, and the President followed with 
the statement that "the safety of the nation 
depended upon the measure." The answer of 
Congress was a stubborn demand that the 
volunteer system be given a fair test before any 
adoption of conscription. 

Mr. Roosevelt came to Washington on April 
nth to urge the acceptance of his volunteer 
divisions, and telephoned the President for an 
appointment that was instantly made. The two 
men, strangely enough, had never met before, 
and during the forty-five minutes of the inter- 
view official Washington held its breath. At 
the end of that time Mr. Roosevelt emerged in 
high good humor, informed the waiting corre- 
spondents that the President had received him 
w^ith "the utmost courtesy and consideration" 
and would doubtless "come to a decision in his 
own good time." Mr. Wilson himself said 
nothing, and that was, and is, the trouble. 

As a matter of fact, it is to his utter failure 
to appreciate the compulsions of curiosity that 
the President disappoints most deeply. He 
himself is entirely lacking in the intense interest 
in personal things that dominates the Hfe of 
the average man and woman. He never gossips, 
and while his conversation is always brilliant 
and amazingly stimulating, it has none of the 
salt of the "he-said-and-I-said" chit-chat that 
constitutes 90 per cent, of human talk. Much 
of this is due to the forward-looking habit of 
his mind, its preoccupation with things to be 

77 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

done, rather than things that have been done, 
but part of it is a very definite preference for 
ideas above personahties. Happening to call 
at the White House the very next day, it was 
natural to expect that some mention would be 
made of the famous interview, but not a word 
was volunteered by the President. When I 
finally took the liberty of asking about it, how- 
ever, he talked freely and interestedly, giving a 
very vivid picture of the meeting. My keenest 
impression at the time was the President's 
appreciation of Mr. Roosevelt's intense virility, 
picturesque personality, and love of fighting. 

One of the first remarks made by Mr. Roose- 
velt was to the effect that if he were given per- 
mission to go to France "he'd promise not to 
come back." Although put forward jocularly, 
the President refused to let even a hint of past 
disagreements creep into the talk, and the two 
approached each other finally in a spirit of abso- 
lute frankness. Mr. Roosevelt made a strong, 
convincing case for his plan to enlist four volun- 
teer divisions, pointing out the speed with 
which they could be raised, the enthusiasm that 
would be aroused, and the necessity for convinc- 
ing the Allies that America was in the war with 
men as well as money. 

The President, in answer, explained the pro- 
visions of the Selective Service law, and cited 
Mr. Roosevelt's own bitter attacks upon the 
criminality of the volunteer system. He dwelt 
on the obvious fact that the opposition of Con- 
gress undoubtedly reflected the sentiment of the 
country in large degree, and was of the opinion 

78 



"THE ROOSEVELT DIVISIONS" 

that it would be no easy matter to wean the 
people away from their most cherished tradition. 
Any sign of compromise would be the signal for 
defeat, and to make one exception, even for an 
ex-President, was to open the gates to every 
pohtician with an ounce of military knowledge. 
His desk, he said, was piled high with requests 
from war veterans, Indian-fighters, Texan 
Rangers, and Southern "colonels,'' none of them, 
as a matter of course, able to compare with Mr. 
Roosevelt in position or popularity, yet each 
one a volcano of courage and sincerity. He had 
the conviction that the attitude of Congress 
was largely due to their desire to accommodate 
this spirit, but it was an accommodation that 
could not end in anything but disaster. The 
war in France was no "Charge of the Light 
Brigade," but the grim subordination of human 
valor to the cold-blooded science of killing. 
Moreover, it was a "boys' war." Tragic, to be 
sure, but middle age must realize that the strain 
and fatigue of the trenches were for the 'twenties. 
Mr. Roosevelt was willing to admit that his 
volunteer divisions might not prove a material 
contribution to the struggle, but he stood firm 
on the proposition that their "moral effect" 
would be of incalculable value. James Bryce 
and General JofFre alike had advised him of the 
necessity of stimulating the Allied morale, and 
he challenged Mr. Wilson to point out a quicker, 
surer way than the spectacle of an ex-President 
of the United States entering France at the head 
of a division of men of proved reputation for 
courage and achievement. 

79 



1 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

The President agreed to this, but held firmly 
that the situation demanded more than a gesture. 
As he saw it, Europe inclined to the behef that 
America was a country of large flourishes, and 
nothing would confirm this feeling more surely 
than the dramatic arrival of a body whose general 
unreadiness must soon become apparent. He 
demurred also to the imposing list of officers 
that Mr. Roosevelt requested, urging that it 
deprived the new draft army of the very men 
that it would most need. His principal and 
unalterable objection, however, was based upon 
the fact that any exception for the benefit of 
Mr. Roosevelt would imperil the adoption and 
operation of the Selective Service bill upon 
which the administration depended. He urged 
Mr. Roosevelt to put his powerful influence be- 
hind the draft bill, and asked him as a personal 
favor to see certain members of Congress for 
purposes of conversation. 

Against the decision Mr. Roosevelt hurled all 
the weight of his personality, and while the 
President made no promises, he was persuaded 
to the point of agreeing to make the matter the 
subject of discussion with the Secretary of War 
and the General Staff. At every point he tried 
to give Mr. Roosevelt the sense of deep sym- 
pathy with his wish, his full understanding of a 
very natural ambition. At the moment, I saw 
for myself how all that was ardent in the Presi- 
dent, the adventurousness that made him want to 
be a sailor in his youth, went out to Mr. Roosevelt 
and his dream of leading the first Americans across 

the water to fight in the land of Lafayette and 

80 



"THE ROOSEVELT DIVISIONS" 

Rochambeau. What a crown to a picturesque, 
colorful, and ever strenuous career! What finer 
death, if death should come! Every impulse of 
the President supported Mr. Roosevelt's re- 
quest, and it was the one time when his emotional 
processes interfered in any degree with cool, 
intellectual analysis of the values of a proposi- 
tion. Not then only, but a score of times 
thereafter I saw him show an almost passionate 
envy for the men lucky enough to spend their 
strength of body and strength of patriotism in 
the supreme exaltation of the battle-field, and 
it was this feeling of his own that gave him 
appreciation of Theodore Roosevelt's desire. 

After some discussion of the probability of 
domestic disaffection and the general situation 
on the western front, the two parted in genuine- 
ness, and Mr. Roosevelt set to work at once 
on the conversion of Congressmen to the draft 
plan. He failed, however, for an informal poll 
of the House Committee on Military Affairs, 
taken April i6th, showed that the volunteer 
system still possessed a majority. It was then 
that the President sent for the House leaders 
and informed them flatly that the administra- 
tion would not "yield an inch of any essential 
part of the program for raising an army by 
conscription." He recited our own experience 
in the war with Spain, and presented facts that 
proved the volunteer plan to be directly respon- 
sible for England's early disasters. As a con- 
sequence, the House passed the Selective Service 
bill on April 29th, although only after a debate 

of intense bitterness. 

81 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

In the mean time Mr. Roosevelt had in no 
wise abated his demand for permission to raise the 
volunteer divisions, nor had the Secretary of 
War and the General Staff changed their minds 
in any degree. During Mr. Roosevelt's stay 
in Washington Mr. Baker called upon- him 
personally, and, as a result of the interview, 
wrote him a letter on April 13th that contained 
this definite refusal: 

Co-operation between the United States and the Entente 
Allies has not yet been so far planned as that any decision 
has been reached upon the subject of sending an expedi- 
tionary force; but should any force be sent, I should feel 
obliged to urge that it be placed under the command of the 
ablest and most experienced professional military man in 
our country, and that it be officered by and composed of 
men selected because of their previous military training, 
and, as far as possible, actual military experience. My 
judgment reached this conclusion for the reason that any 
such expedition will be made up of young Americans who 
will be sent to expose their lives in the bloodiest war yet 
fought in the world, and under conditions of warfare in- 
volving applications of science to the art, of such a char- 
acter that the very highest degree of skill and training 
and the largest experience are needed for their guidance 
and protection. I could not reconcile my mind to a recom- 
mendation which deprived our soldiers of the most experi- 
enced leadership available, in deference to any mere senti- 
mental consideration, nor could I consent to any expedition 
being sent until its members have been seasoned by most 
thorough training for the hardships which they would have 
to endure. I believe, too, that should any expeditionary 
force be sent by the United States, it should appear from 
the very aspect of it that military considerations alone 
had determined its com.position, and I think this appear- 
ance would be given rather by the selection of the officers 
from the men of the army who have devoted their lives 
exclusively to the study and pursuit of military matters 

82 



"THE ROOSEVELT DIVISIONS" 

and have made a professional study of the recent changes 
in the art of war. I should, therefore, be obliged to with- 
hold my approval from an expedition of the sort you 
propose. 

The entire correspondence, beginning Febru- 
ary 2d and ending May nth, was printed by 
Mr. Roosevelt in the Metropolitan Magazine 
for August, 1 91 7, and is available for reference 
and study. While the Secretary of War assumed 
full resp>onsibility for the refusal, Mr. Roosevelt 
knew well that the decision was the decision of 
the General Staff, and his letter of April 22d 
was a direct attack upon "well-meaning military 
men of the red-tape and pipe-clay school, who 
are hidebound in the pedantry of that kind of 
wooden militarism which is only one degree 
worse than its extreme opposite, the folly which 
believes that an army can be improvised between 
sunrise and sunset." With acid in every word 
he commented upon the fact that the large 
number of men who rise high in the army 
"owe more to the possession of a sound stomach 
than to the pvossession of the highest qualities 
of head and heart," and flatly urged the Secre- 
tary to regard his military advisers as unwise 
counselors. 

Mr. Roosevelt's point of view was that of the 
civilian, and it is impossible for the civilian 
not to feel sympathy with it. About the de- 
cisions of every General Staff there is a certain 
effect of class arrogance, a sort of contemptuous 
disregard for everything except their own opin- 
ions, that inevitably arouses the anger of the 
layman. At the same time there must be 
7 83 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

understanding of Mr. Baker's position. The 
members of the General Staff were, by our law, 
his duly constituted advisers in all military 
matters, and to overrule them in a fundamental 
policy at the very outset was to invite bitter- 
ness and disorganization. Because of this con- 
dition, and by reason of his own intense advocacy 
of compulsory service, he stood firm in his 
refusal of Mr. Roosevelt's petition. 

Returning to Congress, the favorable vote of 
the House on April 29th transferred the battle 
to the Senate. All hope of swift action was 
killed almost instantly by the adoption of an 
amendment that gave Mr. Roosevelt the right 
to raise four volunteer divisions. The Republi- 
can leaders— Lodge, Harding, Penrose, Curtis, 
and Weeks — led the fight, and the debate was 
marked by a tone of ugly and disturbing parti- 
zanship. The House refused to concur in the 
amendment, a deadlock resulted, and for two 
weeks this single question paralyzed the war 
effort of an embattled nation. On May 15th, 
however, a compromise was reached, the Senate 
agreeing to withdraw the mandatory feature 
of the amendment, making it optional with the 
President to accept or request the four volunteer 
divisions offered by Mr. Roosevelt. 

By reason of the transfer of the dilemma 
from the Congress to the White House, the 
President was confronted with this situation: 
to refuse Mr. Roosevelt was to give an impression 
of ungenerousness, an effect of partizan narrow- 
ness; on the other hand, to authorize the volun- 
teer enlistment of four divisions was to upset 

84 



"THE ROOSEVELT DIVISIONS" 

the whole machinery of the draft, to make a 
flagrant exception that would inevitably anger 
and alienate the supporters of the volunteer 
system, and, worst of all, to serve notice upon 
the General Staff that its recommendations 
were at all times subject to personal and poHtical 
considerations. His statement of May 5th 
did not attempt to evade the issue, but met it 
decisively. After setting June 5th as registra- 
tion-day, and announcing the choice of Gen. 
John J. Pershing to head an Expeditionary 
Force that would sail for France at the earliest 
possible date, the President took position in 
support of the General Staff and the unfaltering 
execution of the Selective Service law. It 
would have been his pleasure, he said — 

to pay Mr. Roosevelt the compliment and the Allies 
the compliment of sending to their aid one of our most 
distinguished public men, an ex-President who has ren- 
dered many conspicuous public services and proved his 
gallantry in many striking ways. But this is not the time 
or the occasion for compliment or for any action not calcu- 
lated to contribute to the immediate success of the war. 
The business now in hand is undramatic, practical, and of 
scientific definiteness and precision. I shall act v/ith 
regard to it at every step and in every particular under 
expert advice from both sides of the water. That advice 
is that the men most needed are men of the ages con- 
templated in the draft provision of the present bill, not 
men of the age and sort contemplated in the section which 
authorizes the formation of volunteer units, and that for 
the preliminary training of the men who are to be drafted 
we shall need all of our experienced officers. Mr. Roose- 
velt told me, when I had the pleasure of seeing him a few 
weeks ago, that he would wish to have associated with 
him some of the most effective officers of the regular army. 
He named many of these whom he would desire to have 

8s 



s 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

designated for the service, and they were men who can- 
not possibly be spared from the too small force of oflScers 
at our command for the much more pressing and necessary 
duty of training regular troops to be put into the field 
in France and Belgium as fast as they can be got ready. 
The first troops to France will be taken from the present 
forces of the regular army, and will be under the command 
of trained soldiers only. The responsibility for the suc- 
cessful conduct of our part in this great war rests upon me. 
I could not escape it if I would. I am too much interested 
in the cause we are fighting for to be interested in anything 
but success. The issues involved are too immense for me 
to take into consideration anything whatever except the 
best, the most effective, and most immediate means of 
military action. 



THE CASE OF LEONARD WOOD 

EMOTIONAL excitement causes a certain 
suspension of the mental processes, and 
when national feeling is at high pitch the im- 
portant and unimportant almost invariably 
suffer curious inversion. America sent more 
than two million soldiers across the Atlantic to 
engage in a struggle that meant the life or 
death of free institutions, yet throughout that 
trying time, when the issue hung in the bal- 
ance, there were papers and people whose in- 
terest had no larger manifestation than the 
fortunes of Gen. Leonard Wood. At this very 
time of writing the man himself is a conspicu- 
ous figure in public life by reason of the fact 
that he was kept at home in a training-camp 
instead of being permitted to match his military 
genius against the abilities of Hindenburg and 
Ludendorff. 

General Wood was not sent to France for the 
very good reason that Gen. John J. Pershing, 
commander of the American Expeditionary 
Forces, did not ask to have him sent, plain in- 
dication that he was neither needed nor wanted 
in France. The decision was not the decision of 
the President nor the Secretary of War nor the 

87 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Chief of Staff, but the weighed judgment of 
General Pershing, the soldier selected for the 
high post of field command, and given full 
power even as he was held to full responsibility. 
All of the generals in charge of American training- 
camps were sent to France in the summer of 
191 7, not only that they might see for them- 
selves the goal to which they were pointed, the 
style of fighting, and the kind of soldiers that 
would have to be made, but equally for the pur- 
pose of permitting General Pershing to pass upon 
their personalities, character, and abilities. The 
generals returned from their pilgrimage, applied 
themselves to the work of turning raw boys into fit 
defenders, and in due time Pershing sent to the 
Chief of Staff a hst of the commanders that he 
desired to accompany their divisions to France 
when the stage of embarkation should be reached. 
The name of Gen. Leonard Wood was not on the 
list. 

As chairman of the Committee on Public In- 
formation, with duty to stimulate and guard the 
national morale, I made it my business to inquire 
into the facts in the case. At the time of General 
Pershing's departure for France I knew, as did 
every one else in government, that it had been 
made plain to him that he would not be hampered 
by home meddling. Even as he was held to full 
responsibility, so was he given full power in the 
selection of those men upon whom he would 
have to depend. His list, therefore, was ap- 
proved as a matter of course, and went into the 
War Department files until further action should 
be demanded. As I remember it, the whole 

88 



f 
THE CASE OF LEONARD WOOD 

trouble arose from the fact that General March 
treated the circumstance as one of military 
routine entirely, utterly failing to realize its 
political importance. Instead of informing Gen- 
eral Wood at once^ that he had not been chosen 
to go to France, he followed the established 
procedure and waited for the completion of the 
training period hefore issuing orders to the 
division commanders. General Wood, however, 
left Camp Funston in advance of the division 
and without, waiting to receive his orders. 
General March sent them to him in New York, 
and in consequence there was an appearance 
of eleventh-hour action, an effect of jerking 
General Wood from the very deck of the trans- 
port. ..«^,.«. 

As a matter of course, General Wood carried 
his complaint to the President and was told 
plainly that the list would not be revised in the 
personal interest of any soldier or politician. 
When the President took office in 191 3 the one 
army man that he knew was Gen. Hugh L. 
Scott. Wood was then Chief of Staff, and, 
owing to many and bitter complaints against 
him, the President sent for Scott and asked for 
information and advice with respect to the re- 
tention of Wood. General Scott, a generous 
and kindly man, urged the President to take no 
action, and Wood was permitted to remain in the 
office until his term expired in 1914. Throughout 
that period the atmosphere of the War Depart- 
ment was one of spite and jealousy and intrigue. 
When Wood took command of the Department 
of the East in 1914, there was no change in 

89 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

strategy or tactics. At all times the President 
was explicit with regard to Wood. His sense 
of justice had been outraged by the political 
elevation of a doctor over the heads of sol- 
diers who had given laborious years to the 
study and practice of their profession, and his 
sense of taste was offended by the spectacle of 
a soldier in uniform plying the trade of a poli- 
tician. He felt that this allowance of special 
privilege, this grant of immunity to insult and 
insubordination, struck a blow at the discipline 
of the army. 

As for Mr. Baker's views, no one knew at the 
time nor does any one know to-day. At the 
outbreak of war there was plain evidence that 
the Secretary of War had decided upon a policy 
of impersonality, a sort of judicial detachment 
that would lift him above the human wrangle, 
permitting him to make his decisions unin- 
fluenced either by likes or dislikes. This policy 
worked out in his case as it works out in every 
case. He went to absurdities of fairness in 
dealing with his enemies, in order to avoid the 
charge of prejudice, and swung back to an ex- 
treme of unfairness where his friends were 
concerned in order to guard against the sus- 
picion of being swayed by his preferences. As 
a consequence Leonard Wood looked after his 
personal interests during the war, even as he 
has been allowed to make a presidential cam- 
paign in the uniform of a major-general of the 
army of the United States. Mr. Baker's silence, 
to be sure, lends itself to a finer, nobler view, 
and I have always thought that it was the 

90 



THE CASE OF LEONARD WOOD 

right one. Had he spoken, telling of General 
Pershing's list and the fact that Wood's name 
did not appear upon it, he would have escaped 
attack, but America might have suffered. It 
mattered little that the Secretary of War should 
be attacked and abused, but it was an entirely 
different matter for the commander-in-chief of 
the American forces in France, face to face with 
crisis, to be dragged into a domestic political 
wrangle. 

All of which would not be deserving of at- 
tention but for certain curious exaggerations 
in the public mind that have given both the 
man and the incident an importance out 
of all proportion to value. It is by his un- 
canny ability to create these exaggerations 
that Wood rose above the average to which 
he seemed doomed by his mediocrities, and 
is to-day a national figure. The American 
habit of dissociating public and private busi- 
ness, treating political affairs as an emotional 
relaxation rather than an importance, has 
resulted in many incredibilities, some tragic, 
some humorous, but it is doubtful if in 
all history there is record of anything so 
utterly incredible as the story of Leonard 
Wood. 

The reputation of Wood is built" upon as- 
sumption rather than fact, on clever suggestion 
rather than provable statement. His military 
genius is made a matter of general belief by 
reason of constant allusion to Indian campaigns 
in which he played heroic part, assuming com- 
mand of an infantry battalion after it had "lost 

91 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

its last officer,'* and conducting himself in such 
manner as to win a medal of honor; also upon 
his achievements in the war with Spain, when 
he led the Rough Riders to victory at San Juan 
Hill. His administrative genius rests upon his 
record in Cuba from 1899 to 1902, where, ac- 
cording to one of his biographers, he built so< 
permanently that he left behind him "an inde- 
pendent proud democracy" strong to withstand 
the storms of revolution. This record, when 
taken to pieces, is seen to be an absurd jumble 
of baseless claims. 

According to the War Department records, 
Wood entered the military service as a "contract 
surgeon,** a civilian employee entirely without 
military status. During June and July, 1886, 
he was assigned to duty under Capt. H. W. 
Lawton of the 4th Cavalry, at that time in the 
field in pursuit of Geronimo. In addition to the 
cavalry, Captain Lawton had under him a small 
detachment of infantry, about eighteen or twenty 
in number, that had been sent to him without 
any officers. 

On July 2d, when the need arose to have 
this small body captained by some one. 
Doctor Wood asked for the command and 
was given it, and for twenty-eight days was 
by way of being an officer. It was in this 
period that the historic encounter took place 
that gives Doctor Wood his claim to a niche 
in the Hall of Fame. The following extract 
from the official report of Captain Lawton sets 
forth the facts as they were seen by that •• 
officer at the time: 

92 



THE CASE OF LEONARD WOOD 

En Route to Fort Marion, Fla., 

September p, 1886. 
Sir, — I have the honor to submit the following report 
of operations against Geronimo's and Natchez's bands of 
hostile Indians made by the command organized in com- 
pliance with the following order: 

• •••••• 

On the 6th of July the command, consisting of infantry 
and scouts, marched from Oposura. No officer of infantry 
having been sent with the detachment, and having no 
officers with the command except Second-Lieutenant 
Brown, 4th Cavalry, commanding scouts, and Second- 
Lieutenant Walsh, 4th Cavalry, commanding cavalry, 
Assistant-Surgeon Wood was, at his own request, given 
command of the infantry. 

The work during June having been done by the cavalry, 
they were too much exhausted to be used again without 
rest, and they were left in camp at Oposura to recuperate. 

• •••••• 

On the 14th of July a runner was sent back by Lieutenant 
Brown of the scouts, with the information that the camp 
had been located and that he would attack at once with 
his scouts, asking for the infantry to be sent forward to 
his support. I moved forward with the infantry as rapidly 
as possible, and did not reach Lieutenant Brown until 
after he had entered the hostile camp. The attacking 
party had been discovered and all the hostiles escaped. 
Their animals and camp equipage, with a large amount of 
dried beef, etc., fell into our hands, but the hostiles scat- 
tered and escaped on foot. 

• •••••• 

H. W. Lawton, 

Captain 4th Cavalry. 

Adjutant-General, Department of Arizona. 

It will thus be seen that Captain Lawton, 
writing at the time, did not look upon the 
twenty infantrymen as a "battalion," but 

93 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

merely as a detachment; that he stated clearly 
that officers were not sent to him with the 
detachment, and that no attempt was made by 
him to claim that Wood and the infantry were 
present at the attack upon the Indian camp, 
but, on the contrary, there is explicit admission 
that they did not reach the place of encounter 
until after its occupation by the scouts and 
after the flight of every Indian. 

It was not until January 5, 1886, that Doctor 
Wood ceased to be a civilian employee, on that 
date receiving an appointment from Massachu- 
setts as Assistant Surgeon in the United States 
army. From this point on nothing is heard 
of him until 1898, when he emerged into the 
limelight as the personal physician of President 
McKinley and the valued medical adviser of 
Secretary of War Alger. In March, when it 
was a certainty that we would go to war with 
Spain, the country and the army were stunned 
by the announcement that Doctor Wood had 
been awarded the medal of honor "for distin- 
guished conduct in campaign against the Apache 
Indians in 1886 while serving as medical and 
line officer of Captain Lawton's expedition." 

Russell A. Alger has much to answer for, what 
with "embalmed beef," paper shoes, and fever 
camps, and other peccadilloes, but it cannot be 
held against him that he ever permitted the 
obligations of public service to interfere with 
proper rewards for true Republicanism. Not 
only did his enthusiasm blaze back across the 
long stretch of twelve years, but by its light 
he was able to see the occurrence far more 

94 



THE CASE OF LEONARD WOOD 

vividly than even Captain Lawton, on the 
ground at the time. Instead of a "detachment" 
of eighteen or twenty men, Secretary Alger saw 
Doctor Wood's command as a "battalion**; 
not only had officers been sent with this detach- 
ment, contrary to Captain Lawton's report, 
but the noble souls had "died of exposure,*' 
permitting Doctor Wood to leap forward to fill 
all of the vacant posts; the affair at the Indian 
camp was no skirmish, but a "battle,** and 
Doctor Wood, instead of being miles away, was 
in the very forefront of the attack. 

Evidently the medal of honor also carried 
with it the award of Seven League Boots, for 
from this time on the strides of Doctor Wood 
were many and mighty. On May 8, 1898, 
scarce six weeks after receiving the magic medal, 
he was made commanding colonel of the 1st 
U. S. Volunteer Cavalry; on July 8th he was 
made a brigadier-general for services at Las 
Guasimas and San Juan Hill, and on December 
7th he was made a major-general. 

There is not any large need for consideration 
of Wood*s Cuban War record, for even his 
biographers admit that it is confined to two 
battles. There is public testimony to the efl^ect 
that he did not participate personally in the 
battle of San Juan Hill, as it is a matter of mili- 
tary record that he owed his rescue at Las 
Guasimas to the courage of colored troops. ^ 
The point of importance, however, lies in these 
undisputed facts: that the military record of 
Leonard Wood rests upon the command of twenty 
men for twenty-eight days during which but one 

95 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

engagement was fought and in which he played 
no part, and upon several months of service in 
Cuba, where, even if the San Juan Hill claim 
is allowed, he participated in but two battles. 
On the strength of this record he was made a 
major-general in the regular army of the United 
States by Roosevelt in 1903, chief of staff by 
President Taft in 1 910, urged for commander- 
in-chief of the American Expeditionary Force in 
191 7, and boomed for the Presidency in 1920 
on a Prussian platform. 

The Wood reputation as a "great administra- 
tor" rests upon foundations no less flimsy. 
As a matter of course he made Cuba a better 
place in which to live. Not only were conditions 
at a point where improvement was the one 
possible change, but he had with him the very 
flower of America's sanitarians and municipal 
experts. 

House-cleaning, however, is not *' administra- 
tive genius." Street-sweeping, while important, 
is scarcely the sole concern of a President of 
the United States. The thing by which Wood's 
governorship must be judged, in the light of his 
aspirations, is the permanency of the structure 
that he built. He went into Cuba when the 
ground was clear and he had a free hand backed 
by all the power of the United States. What 
was the result? The structure that he raised 
fell to pieces in exactly four years. In July, 
1906, revolution rocked the island to a demorali- 
zation as complete as any ever suffered before, 
and in September of that year American troops 
landed for a second intervention. For three 

96 



THE CASE OF LEONARD WOOD 

years we kept our soldiers and administrators 
in charge of Cuban affairs, and when they left 
in 1909 they had builded so well that the re- 
public endures to this day, a period of eleven 
years as compared to the four years' life of the 
former creation. And in this second interven- 
tion Leonard Wood had no part or lot. 



VI 

THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

A PROFOUND sense of unnecessariness is 
bound to check many post-war explanations, yj 
even as it imparts a perfunctory quality to 
those that are made, for, after all, the complete 
answer to every charge of fault, failure, and mis- 
conduct is given by the fact of victory as swift 
as it was decisive. In the hour when the fate of 
free nations hung uncertainly the organized 
major force of America struck the blow that 
crushed the mightiest military organization in 
history. Not one pennyweight of credit is to 
be taken away from the Allies, war-weary after 
four terrible years, but at the time we entered 
the struggle the Germans werq in positions of 
virtual dominance on every front — insolent, as- 
sured, powerful. Twenty months from Amer- 
ica's declaration of war their arrogance was 
bowed, their leaders in flight, their ultimatums 
changed to pleas. 

It was inevitable that politicians would seek 
to ignore this fact of victory, but that a whole 
people should shut their eyes to splendid achieve- 
ment will undoubtedly excite the puzzled atten- 
tion of the historians of the future. A more 
amazing, incomprehensible change has never 
been suffered by a race. The day of the armis- 

98 



The power and the glory 

tice America stood on the hilltops of glory, 
proud in her strength, invincible in her ideals, 
acclaimed and loved by a world free of an an- 
cient fear at last: to-day we writhe in a pit of 
our own digging, despising ourselves and de- 
spised by the betrayed peoples of earth. Instead 
of unity a vast disintegration, instead of enthu- 
siasm an intolerable irritation, instead of fixed 
purpose a strange and bewildering indecision. 
A certain reaction was natural and is perfectly 
understandable. After a year and a half of 
intense emotionalism, with every life keyed to 
service and sacrifice, taut nerves were bound to 
go slack. With people picking up old threads 
and finding them sadly tangled, a high degree of 
irritability was a foregone conclusion. The 
natural has long since been left behind, however, 
and it is the stage of obsession that has been 
reached. Criticism has changed to vile abuse, 
and the shining arch of victory goes unseen while 
snooping hundreds crawl around the base, hope- 
fully searching for cracks and flaws. Heroes 
pushed aside by camp-followers, men most 
applauded whose partizanship drips like acid on 
the war record of America, and statesmanship 
discarded for the pull and haul of parochial 
politicians. The common decencies of patriotism 
call a halt before the wells of public opinion are 
poisoned beyond all cleansing! 

It is our pride as a people that we must re- 
cover — a pride that springs from no effervescence 
of conceit, but a pride bed-rocked in supreme 
accomplishment. It was not alone that we did 
the thing we set out to do, but in the doing we 
8 99 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

established records of energy, initiative, and 
determination that have no parallel in history. 
The Allies had only faint hope of aid from our 
man-power, while the Germans themselves were 
confident that they would have ample time to 
win the war before America could possibly prove 
a factor in the fighting. They stimulated their 
morale, civil as well as military, by repeated 
assurances that "the Yankees" could not raise 
an army; that even if it were raised it could not 
be trained properly; that even if raised and 
trained it could not be transported. 

Within a month from the declaration of war 

the traditional policy of the nation was reversed 

by the enactment of the Selective Service Act. 

A vast machinery of registration was created that 

ran without a hitch, and on June 5th more than 

10,000,000 men were registered quickly and 

efficiently. 

/ Thirty-two encampments — ^virtual cities, since 

/ each had to house 40,000 men — ^were built in 

I ninety days from the driving of the first nail, 

/ complete in every municipal detail, a feat de- 

/ clared impossible, and which will stand for all] 

; time as a building miracle. 

In June, scarcely two months after the Presi- 
dent's appearance before Congress, General 
Pershing and his staff reached France, and on 
July 3d the last of four groups of transports 
landed American fighting-men in the home of 
Lafayette and Rochambeau. On October loth 
our soldiers went on the firing-line. 

Training-camps for officers started in June, 
and in August there were graduated 27,341 

100 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

successful aspirants, ready to assume the tasks 
of leadership. 

What was the situation in France? Every 
possible port pre-empted, every mile of railroad 
used to its uttermost capacity, supplies sufficient 
for French forces only, and an utter lack of 
proper housing facilities for the Americans who 
were to come. A tidewater port was the best 
that we could get, great docks had to be built, 
our own railroad lines had to be constructed; 
there were storage depots to build, and 13,000 
foresters, equipped with the latest American 
inventions in lumbering machinery, had to go 
into the woodlands of France and cut down the 
trees for barracks, railroad ties, and construc- 
tion timber. Not in any degree was it the case 
that our problem was merely to get men to 
France. Not only did we have to get them 
there, but we also had to build our own debarka- 
tion facilities, our own transportation, our own 
housing, hospitals, ordnance bases, etc., and we 
had to devise the stable mechanism that would 
keep supplies of every kind flowing steadily 
across 3,000 miles of water. And it was done! 

Shipping was an abandoned craft. It had to 
be revived, workmen trained and yards built; 
yet such were our ingenuities that by November 
I, 191 8, the transport service of the army alone 
numbered 431 ships, totaling over 3,000,000 
deadweight tons. 

In June 12,261 troops and 2,798 marines were 
embarked. In December embarkations had 
reached 50,000 a month. In March the number 
had grown to 84,000. Then came what Europe 

lOI 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

called "America's transport miracle." In April 
the embarkations were 1 18,637; i^ May, 245,950; 
in June, 278,756; in July, 306,185. At the time 
of the armistice the total embarkations amounted 
to 2,045,169 troops and 30,665 marines. 

The first shipment of supplies was about 
16,000 tons in June, 191 7. By October we were 
shipping 750,000 tons a month. Altogether we 
shipped 5,153,000 tons of supplies to our soldiers 
in France, 95 per cent, of it in American bottoms. 

Ships had to be altered to carry the 1,145 
locomotives that we sent; there were problems 
in connection with the shipping of flat-cars 
"ready to run"; there was also a cross- 
channel fleet that had to be assembled, but 
these things were all done, not slowly, but at 
top speed. 

With what result? Before our aid was deemed 
a possibility we were relieving French and 
English divisions in quiet sectors; in May, 191 8, 
a year after our declaration of war, we fought 
side by side with veterans at Cantigny; in June 
we met the Germans hand to hand in Belleau 
Wood and proved ourselves their masters; in 
July, with the Germans almost at the gates of 
Paris, we disdained the general retreat and won 
the battle of Chateau-Thierry, a victory that was 
the turning-point of the war. 
/ In September we wiped out the St.-Mihiel 
salient, held by the Germans against every attack 
for four long years; in October we dealt the 
Prussians that succession of terrible hammer 
blows — twenty-eight American divisions in the 
firing-line — that drove them back up the Meusc 

102 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

until we entered the outskirts of Sedan and 
definitely cut the German supply line. That was 
the war 5 end! 

Is it in the face of these glories and tremendous 
achievements that we are to whine and nag and 
meanly quarrel? 

Our achievements on the high seas were no 
less notable than those on land. The navy of 
the United States, held up to derision as a junk- 
pile, proved an invincible first line of defense, 
not only guarding the shores of America, but 
able also to send fighting-craft of every kind to 
English waters. South American waters, the 
Mediterranean, and the North Sea. Our navy 
guarded over two million men on the way to 
France; our navy escorted tonnage to France 
with a loss of only 0.009 P^^ cent, and tonnage 
out of France with a loss of 0.013 per cent. 

Our destroyers proved themselves in the war 
zone, our mine-layers dropped the submarine bar- 
rages that made the North Sea safe, our officers, 
with their courage, initiative, and inventive 
genius, gave new force to the fight against the 
U-boats. 

The greatest single constructive agency of 
naval warfare, which did more to break the 
German naval morale than any other one thing, 
was the mine-barrage across the North Sea, a 
sweep of 230 miles. In April, 191 7, within a few 
days after the United States entered the war, 
the Bureau of Ordnance proposed such a bar- 
rage, the General Board of the Navy approved, 
and we drove it through against the doubt and 
opposition of the British Admiralty, who, not 

103 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

having thought of it during three years of war, 
insisted that the idea was without merit. 

In the "Summary of Activities of United 
States Naval Forces Operating in European 
Waters," made up and issued from Admiral 
Sims's headquarters in London, it was stated 
that "a total of over 256 attacks by United 
States vessels occurred. In 183 of these cases 
there was definite chart evidence of a submarine 
in the vicinity/' 

Disregarding the numerous reports of sighting 
submarines or periscopes which were classed as 
doubtful or problematical, the records of the 
Armed Guard Section contain reports of 227 
encounters of armed American merchant-ships 
with submarines, in 193 of which the attacks 
were successfully combated. Thirty-four U-boats 
were reported damaged by Armed Guard gun- 
fire, of which there was evidence that several 
were sunk. Of the 227 encounters, 44 were 
surface engagements, some of them long-con- 
tinued gun-fire contests. 

One of the most notable and successful naval 
actions, after this country entered the war, 
was the attack on the Austrian naval base at 
Durazzo, October 2, 191 8. In this operation a 
flotilla of American submarine-chasers, under 
command of Capt. Charles P. Nelson and 
Lieut.-Com. E. H. Bastedo, took a prominent 
part, leading the way and clearing the path of 
mines, sinking one submarine, and damaging 
and apparently destroying another U-boat; 
screening larger ships from torpedo attack, 
going to the aid of a British cruiser which was 

104 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

torpedoed, and taking under escort an enemy 
hospital-ship — all this under heavy fire during 
bombardment from the Austrian forts. A num- 
ber of engagements with enemy submarines by 
United States naval vessels operating from Gib- 
raltar were also reported. Another report 
compiled and issued by Admiral Sims*s head- 
quarters in London stated that "between the 
dates of their arrival in European waters and 
signing of the armistice United States battle- 
ships were attacked six times by enemy sub- 
marines, and on one occasion the New York 
collided with a submarine." 

It is in the face of this record, in the face 
of his own admissions, that Admiral Sims an- 
nounces: "Our navy was not in this war in 
a fighting-sense. We were acting as motor- 
lorries behind the army, except that we were 
on the water. There was no fighting on the 
sea. 

A better witness is Mr. Herbert Hoover, 
who in his testimony before the Senate stated 
flatly that at the time of America's entrance 
into the war the German submarine campaign 
had brought the Allies to "the border-line of 
starvation," and that it was our vigorous and 
instant co-operation that crushed the U-boat 
menace. 

Aircraft achievements, so bitterly attacked 
by partizan malice throughout the war, show 
no less fine and inspiring when subjected to fair 
analysis. An April 6, 191 7, the United States 
had 3 small aviation-fields, 55 training-'planes, 
only 4 of which were in use, and an air personnel 

105 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

of 65 officers and 1,120 men. By the time of the 
armistice we had 34 aviation-fields, and our 
aviation training-schools had graduated 8,602 
men from elementary courses and 4,028 from 
advanced courses. More than 5,000 pilots and 
observers were sent overseas. 

From July 24, 191 7, when the appropriation 
was made, up to the time of the armistice, there 
were produced in the United States more than 
8,000 training-'planes and more than 16,000 
training-engines. 

Of De Havilland 4's, the observation and day 
bombing-'planes, 3,227 were completed and 1,885 
shipped overseas for work at the front. 

Of Liberty engines, 13,574 were completed, 
4,435 shipped to the American Expeditionary 
Forces, and 1,025 delivered to the Allies. 

By orders placed in France and Italy at the 
outset of the war, for all of which we paid, and 
for many of which we furnished the materials, 
we received from these sources 3,800 service- 
'planes, in which we put American fliers. 

In nineteen months we were able to display a 
machine built in America, of American materials, 
built by American labor, and of American 
design, of each of the types used on the battle-fronts 
in Europe, and each of them as good as, if not 
better than, any other made anywhere else 
in the world. 

In our nineteen months we did more than was 
done by any other belligerent nation in its first 
nineteen months. Our second year of war 
equaled England's record in her third. 

We gave to the world its greatest airplane 

106 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

engine — the Liberty. We produced typical 
American machines that were acknowledged 
to be the superior of Europe's best. 

The Allies, after three years of war, had 
developed only one machine-gun that could be 
successfully synchronized to fire through a re- 
volving airplane propeller. In twelve months 
we produced two, both susceptible to quantity 
production. 

We invented new airplane cameras, electric- 
heated clothing for aviators in high -altitude 
work, also the oxygen mask, equipped with tele- 
phone connections that enabled the flier to endure 
any altitude without losing speaking-contact 
with his fellows. 

We developed the military parachute to a 
degree of safety undreamed of by Europeans. 
During the entire war there was not a casualty 
due to parachute failure. 

We developed in quantity the wireless airplane 
telephone that placed the flier in easy and instant 
communication with his ground station and his 
commander in the air. 

At the time of the armistice the American air 
force on the firing-line numbered forty-five 
squadrons with an equipment of 740 'planes, and 
these squadrons played great parts in the battles 
of Chateau-Thierry, St.-Mihiel, and the Meuse- 
Argonne. We brought down 755 enemy 'planes 
in open combat. 

In plain words, at the time of the armistice, 
after only nineteen months of eflFort, we had 
training-'planes, De Havilland 4's, and Liberty 
engines in quantity production, and we were 

107 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

ready with the Lepere, a two-place fighting- 
machine built around a Liberty engine, and held 
by the greatest experts in the world to be the 
last word in clean-cut perfection. 

The story of our aircraft is the story of the 
whole war; for not only does it take in the tre- 
mendous grapple with problems as new as huge 
and imperative, but it also brings into promi- 
nence those impatiences and intolerances that are 
the manifestations of our youth as a nation. 
When we want a thing we want it, and woe to 
those who commit the unforgivable crime of 
disappointment. Perhaps this has figured as an 
asset in our fight for success, and yet there is 
something very brutal about the quality, a 
certain definite unfairness that borders on cold- 
blooded cruelty. Our climb to greatness is 
thick with the shattered reputations of men who 
dreamed splendidly and wrought hugely, yet, 
failing in the time or manner of delivery, were 
cast aside, while others came forward to reap the 
credit of vision, struggle, and achievement. 
^ When we entered the war and turned to the 
building of aircraft it was much as though the 
Babylonians had been called upon suddenly to 
construct automobiles. The secrecies of belliger- 
ents had kept our automotive engineers from 
keeping abreast with the myriad changes and 
improvements; only one or two factories had 
any equipment for the new industry, few 
workers were familiar with the thousand and 
one delicate operations of 'plane manufacture, 
and the bulk of necessary material was all in the 

raw. It was not known that forty-five trained 

io8 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

men were necessary to keep one 'plane in the 
air, that each 'plane had to have an extra engine 
as well as a multitude of spare parts, that flying- 
fields constituted a problem all their own, and 
that the constant play of extraordinary inventive 
genius made junking a daily occupation. 

None of these considerations had any weight 
with the American people, however. We wanted 
to become the world's greatest airplane power 
overnight, and that was all there was to it! 
The Joint Army and Navy Technical Board 
caught the spirit and announced that they must 
have 22,000 training and battle 'planes in twelve 
months, which, counting extra engines and spare 
parts, meant a total of 40,000 in one year. 
Twining vine leaves in its own hair, the Senate 
voted ^640,000,000 for aircraft production, and 
the spree was on. 

Let it be remembered also that even the order 
for what amounted to 40,000 'planes in one year 
did not appease the editorial and fireside ex- 
perts. Such as these demanded that America 
must have 50,000 'planes in the air at one time, 
and Admiral Peary never became reconciled to 
any smaller figure. Many editors refused to 
admit any difference between airplanes and 
"flivvers," and grew querulous at the delay in 
turning out hourly batches. 

Even to this day I marvel at the courage of 
the men who went up against that stone wall of 
expectation, and even more do I admire the 
superb enthusiasm, the invincible optimism, that 
never failed to illumine the darkest hours. 
Never a whine out of them, never a moment's 

109 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

pause to search for alibis, but always the in» 
sistence, "We can do it because it's just got to 
be done." 

Howard Coffin was the man with vision enough 
to see down to the very heart of American 
genius and energy; Deeds, Waldon, and Mont- 
gomery put solid foundations under the vision; 
Vincent and Hall conceived and built the Liberty 
motor, and to their call came others who joined 
to write a record of romantic achievement that 
ought to be put into school readers for the 
inspiration of children. First, there was the 
problem of the spruce and the fir that go into 
the wingbeams and other 'plane parts. In many 
cases, stands of timber had to be surveyed and 
railroads built to connect them with mills. 
Special saws had to be designed, and experts 
trained in the selection and judging of logs. 
The usual processes of seasoning were too slow, 
and new kiln processes had to be developed to 
dry out the lumber more quickly, and yet in 
such manner as to preserve its strength. 

On top of everything labor troubles developed, 
and the whole production of spruce and fir was 
threatened with stoppage. Col. Bruce P. Disque 
was materialized, and before he got through he 
had organized 75,cxx) lumbermen into the Loyal 
Legion of Loggers, every man pledged to give his 
best to the government. 

Castor-oil was recognized as the one satis- 
factory lubricant for airplane motors. The 
supply was not sufficient, and we secured from 
Asia a quantity of castor beans large enough to 
seed 100,000 acres. 

no 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

When we entered the war it was supposed 
that the only possible fabric for covering the 
flying surfaces of a 'plane was linen. England, 
after promising to meet all our requirements 
from Ireland's supply of flax, fell down on the 
job. To meet the need, the Bureau of Standards 
developed a fabric of long-fiber cotton that was 
even superior to linen. Over 10,000,000 yards 
were woven and delivered to the government, 
which, put end to end, would have stretched 
from California to France. 

Then there was the difiiculty of "dope," a 
sort of varnish with which the cotton covering 
had to be filled in order to stretch it tight and 
give a smooth surface. We figured that our 
dope had to be made from acetone and its kin- 
dred products. But the world's supply of ace- 
tone was insufl&cient to meet the demand, and 
so it was that the government had to enter into 
a partnership for the establishment of ten large 
factories for the production of acetone. 

All the aeronautic experts of the world were 
convinced that mahogany was the one suitable 
wood for propellers. Our supply was scant, so 
we conducted experiments with walnut, oak, 
cherry, and ash, and by improved seasoning 
processes gained results as splendid as with 
mahogany. 

Then there was the question of the engine. 
The slightest observation showed that the 
European engines were being scrapped with 
alarming regularity, owing to constant better- 
ments. It would have been folly indeed to 
equip our factories for the production of machines 

III 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

that we knew would be out of date by the time 
we commenced to produce in quantity. 

Colonel Deeds and his associates reached the 
decision that the thing for America to do was to 
produce an engine of her own that would be so 
far ahead of all others as to be safe from any 
danger of scrapping. Jesse G. Vincent and 
E. J. Hall, each in his own way, had been working 
on an engine, and the two were asked to give 
«p their individual experiments and pool their 
inventive genius for the good of America. Mr. 
Hall and Mr. Vincent, with Colonel Deeds and 
Colonel Waldon beside them, set to work on 
May 29, 1917. As fast as the detail drawings 
were made they went at top speed to the twelve 
factories among which the work was divided. 
The greatest engineers in the country went over 
the plans in detail, practical production men were 
then called in, and even builders of the machine- 
tools were called for counsel. As fast as the 
various parts were turned out they were rushed 
to the Packard Company for assembling. 

On July 14, 1 91 7, the first 8-cylinder Liberty 
engine was delivered in Washington, and on 
August 25th the i2-cylinder Liberty passed its 
hard fifty-hour test successfully. 

A good engine in six weeks and the best in 
the world in three months ! And delivery in series 
began in five months! It stands as an achieve- 
ment absolutely without parallel. The best ever 
done by any other country was a year. 

Is all this miracle to be discounted because 
*' there was not speed enough"? All the honest 
pride that should be ours to be buried in queru- 

112 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

lousness because we were promised delivery on 
Thursday and did not get it until Saturday? 

As in the case of mobiHzation, building, ship- 
ping, and aircraft, the provision of rifles, machine- 
guns, ammunition, and ordnance presented 
problems as new as stupendous. We had enough 
Springfield rifles on hand to equip an army of 
1,000,000, but their intricate construction made 
immediate quantity production an impossibility. 
Yet quantity production of ammunition for the 
Springfields was possible. American initiative 
met the problem by changes that not only 
simplified and improved the British Enfield, 
but fitted it for the use of the Springfield 
cartridge. This modified Enfield came into 
quantity production in August, 191 7, and at the 
time of the armistice the output had reached a 
total of 2,300,000. Added to this was a produc- 
tion of 300,000 Springfields. In the matter of 
ammunition we produced 3,500,000,000 rounds 
of our own as compared to 100,000,000 rounds 
that we bought from the French and British. 

Congress, in 191 2, sanctioned the allowance 
of four machine-guns to a regiment. When 
America entered the war the use of machine- 
guns had developed to 336 machine-guns per 
regiment. To meet initial needs we bought 
Hotchkiss machine-guns and Chauchat auto- 
matics from the French, but at the same time 
started work on the perfection of a gun of our 
own that would be "better than the best." The 
answer of American inventive genius was the 
"light" Browning and the "heavy" Browning, 
admittedly superior to anything possessed either 

113 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

by the Allies or the Germans. Both types were 
brought into production in February and April, 
191 8, and at the time of the armistice 227,000 
had been delivered. 

With respect to artillery, it was decided at 
the outset that speed and effectiveness alike 
pointed to the wisdom of using guns of French 
manufacture. Not only was French artillery 
the best, but French production outran the 
demand. Inventions of our own were perfected, 
however, and manufacture pushed, with the re- 
sult that the armistice found America producing 
Complete artillery units sufficient for every need. 
Great plants had to be erected for the manu- 
facture of high explosives, whole industries had 
to be taken over, the production of toxic gases 
called for government ownership and operation, 
and each day demanded new exhibitions of in- 
ventive genius and driving initiative. With what 
results ? 

At the time of the armistice we were pro- 
ducing gas more rapidly than England, France, 
or Germany. 

At the end of the war American production of 
smokeless powder was 45 per cent, greater than 
the French and British production combined. 

At the end of the war American production 
of high explosives was 40 per cent, greater than 
Great Britain's and nearly double that of 
France. 

Out of every 100 days that our combat divi- 
sions were in line in France they were supported 
by their own artillery for 75 days, by British 
artillery for 5 days, and by French for \]/2 days. 

114 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

Of the remaining i8^ days that they were in 
line without artillery, i8 days were in quiet 
sectors, and only >^ of i day in each loo was 
in active sectors. 

Greatest source of pride, however, is the care 
that every fighting-man received. From first 
to last not an "embalmed-beef horror such 
as shamed the Spanish-American War, not a 
case of "paper-soled shoes," not a single duplica- 
tion of the "fever camps'* that brought unneces- 
sary grief into thousands of American homes in 
1898. The death-rate per 1,000 during the war 
with Spain was 26. In the war just ended the 
death-rate per 1,000 was 6.4 in the United 
States, and 4.7 in the American Expeditionary 
Force, and it must be remembered that even 
these percentages were made much larger by 
the influenza epidemic that swept the country. 
No soldiers of any nation ever received such 
care. Among the 39,000 officers of the Medical 
Corps were the best men of the profession — 
the greatest specialists in every line — and not 
even the sons of the rich in civil life were given 
more painstaking attention than that bestowed 
upon the humblest private. 

Nor was this all. The War Risk Insurance 
Bureau, originated and administered by Secre- 
tary McAdoo, made the government of the 
United States the largest and safest insurance 
company in the world, and at the same time a 
"helping hand" that went out to the wives 
and children of the fighting-men. In the very 
first year of its operation the Bureau wrote 
4,000,000 policies in an amount exceeding ^40,- 
9 IIS 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

000,000,000 and distributed $450,000,000 to the 
dependent families of soldiers and sailors. 

Honesty is no less a glory. In addition to 
$10,000,000,000 loaned to the Allies, the govern- 
ment expended more than $27,000,000,000 for 
the prosecution of the war, a sum as large as 
the total expenses of the federal government 
from 1783 to 191 7. Although this huge amount 
was disbursed in the hurry and confusion of 
war, the utmost zeal of congressional commit- 
tees has been unable to unearth graft or serious 
misconduct on the part of responsible officials or 
of the citizens who responded to the call of the 
administration. The completeness of these in- 
vestigations may be judged by the fact that they 
have cost the taxpayers more than $2,000,000 
to date. When the scandals and shames of 1898 
are remembered, a great satisfaction can be 
taken in the honor and faith of 1917 and 1918. 

Raising $37,000,000,000 was a task faced by 
as many new and difficult problems as were met 
with in aircraft and ordnance. Billions were an 
immediate necessity, and Secretary McAdoo 
met the emergency by the inspiration of short- 
time certificates of indebtedness, followed im- 
mediately by the announcement of bond issues. 
The financiers of the country naturally assumed 
that these issues would be floated through the 
banks on the usual commission basis, but Secre- 
tary McAdoo had the courage and vision to 
conceive a plan that would save money even as 
it would manufacture war spirit. Coining the 
name "Liberty Loan," he went straight to the 
people, and although the idea was fought with 

116 



THE POWER AND THE GLORY 

bitterness, each of five bond issues was over- 
subscribed. It was likewise the genius of Mc- 
Adoo that conceived the idea of War Savings and 
Thrift Stamps, a plan that made the smallest 
child a partner of the government in the pros- 
ecution of the war. 

A wonderful achievement, whether taken as a 
whole or subjected to piecemeal analysis. The 
committee appointed by President McKinley 
to examine the conduct of the war with Spain 
prefaced its report by asking the people to 
remember that "the task of mobilizing, training, 
and equipping 275,000 men was of such massive 
proportions that all of the criticisms and com- 
ments that were made in regard to it must be 
read with regard to the size of the task/' Only 
nineteen years later America was called upon, 
almost overnight, to mobilize, train, equip, and 
maintain an army of 5,000,000 men — to send 
2,000,000 of them across the Atlantic — and met 
that call without one of the scandals or failures 
that shamed the record of 1898. 

Glory in the highest, and, what is best, glory 
enough for all. By no means was it the war of 
an administration or the war of a party. In the 
tremendous accomplishment Republicans and 
Democrats stood shoulder to shoulder, partizan- 
ship forgotten, nothing remembered save that 
they were Americans. Nor was it merely the 
war of soldiers and sailors. Behind the trenches 
and the battle-ships stretched the army of the 
second lines, the men, women, and children of 
the United States, serving and sacrificing with 
no less devotion than the fighting-force itself. 

117 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

These are things to remember when partizanship 
deals only in sneers and detraction. The future 
of America is not limited to the presidential 
campaign of 1920, and the hopes of that future 
are linked inseparably to the prides and resolves 
bom of unparalleled achievement. 



VII 



AMERICA S MORAL OFFENSIVES 

GREAT and splendid as were the military 
achievements of the United States, they 
were not more effective than the projectile force 
of American ideals. No credit may be taken 
from the 2,000,000 men in khaki who beat back 
German might at Chateau-Thierry and St.- 
Mihiel, and whose presence and courage gave 
heart to the Allied armies in an hour of despair, 
but there were moral victories no less far-reaching 
and conclusive. Our war aims, declared in the 
various state papers of the President, gave us 
domestic unity, won us the friendship and sup- 
port of neutral nations, and crumbled the foun- 
dation of fear and lies that upheld the evil 
structure of Prussian militarism. Sent by cable 
and wireless to every corner of earth, translated 
into every tongue, printed by the millions on 
native presses, the pronouncements of the Presi- 
dent had the force of armies, conquering the 
mind of mankind and delivering humanity from 
age-old bondages. As long as the world lasts, 
these addresses, of singular power and beauty, 
will stand as the ultimate exposition of human 
faith in the practicability of liberty, justice, and 
fraternity. 

It is to be remembered that the Great War was 

119 



J 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

not a war for democracy when it commenced, 
nor even at the time we entered it. Trade 
imperiaHsm ruled the world in 1914 and the 
breakdown of civilization was the logical result 
of theories of government that put weakness 
at the mercy of greed. Ireland, India, and 
Egypt struggled in the grip of the British Em- 
pire; France held Morocco; Italy clutched 
Tripoli; England and Russia strangled Persia; 
in China and Africa the French, English, and 
Germans werg rival annexationists; Russia kept 
the Poles, th^, Finns, and the Ruthenes in sub- 
jection; the Austro-Hungarian Alliance enslaved 
Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes, and Jugo- 
slavs; Japan ruled Korea and parts of Man- 
churia; and Germany exercised brutal sway over 
kingdoms and colonies. Wherever one looked 
there was a cynical disregard of human rights, 
an almost blasphemous exaltation of the privi- 
leges of trade. 

It was merely the case that the Imperial Ger- 
man government came to disdain the slow and 
undramatic processes of "peaceful penetration." 
Its masters, unbalanced by the incantations 
and prophecies of militarism's high priests and 
drunk in contemplation of colossal power, 
reverted suddenly to the savage methods of 
tribalism and resolved upon one great blow 
that should give them world dominion. Through 
the eyes of hate and paranoia, they saw Belgium 
annexed, France crushed, occupation of the 
Channel ports, Serbia reduced to vassalage, 
and the rest of the Balkan States instructed in 
obedience; Turkey, Austria-Hungary, and Italy 

120 



AMERICA'S MORAL OFFENSIVES 

mere suzerainties; Asia and Africa left helpless 
for the taking; Russia, England, and America 
to be dealt with at leisure. A dream of mad- 
men, perhaps, but one that had every chance of 
success. 

The disclosure of these purposes, the very 
ferocity of the sudden and unprovoked assault, 
and the horror of German war practices inevi- 
tably placed the Allies in the finer position of 
standing for civilization, humanity, and inter- 
national law. Their struggle, however, was 
essentially one of self-defense and remained 
just that, not a leader having the vision to grasp 
the necessity of a new and better order as a 
substitute for the outworn system of balanced 
power, responsible not only for the present 
madness, but equally certain to breed other 
wars if continued. President Wilson was under 
no illusions. He knew that France and Prussia 
were once in alliance, that Italy was the ally 
of Germany in 1914, that England had always 
hated Russia and feared her, that England and 
France were ready to fight over Fashoda in 1900, 
and he saw at the end of the war, even in event 
of Allied victory, nothing more conclusive than 
realignments and new "balances of power.'' 
Out of his soul's rebellion against the sorry 
drama of despair and futility he harked back 
to the innate idealism of the race and brought 
forth his proposal for a League of Nations, a 
world partnership of self-governing peoples in 
the interests of justice, liberty, and a peace of 
permanence. The idea itself was as old as 
Christ, but it was not until the President's 

121 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

address of May 27, 1916, that It took shape 
and form in the heart of sick and hopeless 
humanity. 

Again on December i8th, in his note to the 
belligerent nations, Woodrow Wilson showed 
that he was looking beyond the war to the peace, 
and that the compelling interest of America 
was in some settlement that would guard the 
world against a recurrence of barbarism. The 
war we entered must be a war against war, and 
the whole purpose of the note was to lift the 
thought of the world above the accepted and 
habitual. The President knew well where Ger- 
many stood; what he wanted was to force the 
Allies to take higher, firmer ground. The plan 
succeeded. The Imperial German government 
answered in the terms and spirit of Attila; the 
reply of the Allies showed grasp of the American 
aspiration and full sympathy with it. Of supreme 
significance was the declaration of "whole- 
hearted agreement with the proposal to create 
a League of Nations which shall assure peace 
and justice throughout the world." The address 
of the President to the Senate on January 22, 
1 91 7, transformed the war from a struggle 
between dynasties to a holy war in behalf of 
imperishable ideals, even as it marked the 
flowering of his individual patriotism into the 
genius of the race. It was to a world that the 
President spoke, and it was the world that 
answered this noble outline of a Peace of the 
People: 

I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with 
one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the 

122 



AMERICA'S MORAL OFFENSIVES 

doctrine of the world; that no nation should seek to extend 
its policy over any other nation or people, but that every 
people should be left free to determine its own polity, 
its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, 
unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful. 

I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid en- 
tangling alliances which would draw them into com- 
petitions of power, catch them in a net of intrigue and 
selfish rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influences 
intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance 
in a concert of power. When all unite to act in the same 
sense and with the same purpose, all act in the common 
interest and are free to live their own lives under a common 
protection. 

Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will 
be absolutely necessary that a force be created as a guaran- 
tor of the permanency of the settlement so much greater 
than the force of any nation now engaged or any alliance 
hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable 
combination of nations, could face or withstand it. If 
the peace presently to be made is to endure, it must be a 
peace made secure by the organized major force of man- 
kind. . 

The War Message of April 2d had in it nothing 
of the tentative. Sure of his ground at last, 
confident alike in the idealism of America and in 
the aroused vision of Allied peoples, the President 
declared that — 

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace 
must be planted upon the tested foundations of political 
liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no 
conquests, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for our- 
selves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall 
freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights 
of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have 
been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations 
can make them. v 

The right is more precious than peace, and we shall 

123 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

fight for the things which we have always carried nearest 
our hearts — for democracy, for the right of those who 
submit to authority to have a voice in their own govern- 
ments, for the rights and Hberties of small nations, for a 
universal dominion of right by such a concert of free people 
as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make 
the world itself at last free. 

The projectile force of the President's idealism, 
its full military value, may be measured by the 
fact that between April 6 and December 8, 1917, 
sixteen states, great and small, declared war 
against Germany or severed diplomatic relations 
with her. From the very first the Allies accepted 
the President as their spokesman. Shrewd for 
all their cynicism, they saw that the old order 
was out of tune and favor, and that Mr. Wilson 
spoke the language of a new order, that his was 
the gift of understanding human hopes, and they 
sat silent when his voice was lifted. The papal 
overtures of August, 191 7, were answered by 
the President alone, and again the world thrilled 
to the assertion of unconquerable resolve in 
connection with the establishment of a peace 
of justice and permanence. 

The last months of 191 7 marked the zero 
hour for the Allied cause so far as military opera- 
tions were concerned. The great German-Aus- 
trian counterdrive into Italy was quickly followed 
by the overthrow of Kerensky, Lenin's instant 
submission to Germany, and the infamous Treaty 
of Brest-Litovsk. With the flourish of the con- 
queror, Count Czernin laid down a set of peace 
terms in behalf of the Central Powers, and it 
was the answer of the President on January 8, 

I2A 



AMERICA'S MORAL OFFENSIVES 

191 8, that shot light through the falHng dark- 
ness. In the declaration of America's peace 
terms there was a certainty and confidence that 
carried reassurance to the AUies even as it struck 
mightily at the weak foundations of Austria- 
Hungary. The "program of the world's peace" 
was set forth in Fourteen Points that were im- 
mediately accepted by the world as great 
commandments.^ 

Speaking on July 4th, at Mount Vernon, he 
formulated the fundamental principles for which 
we were fighting in four supplementary points: 

There can be but one issue. The settlement must be ^ 
final. There can be no compromise. No half-way decision 
would be tolerable. No half-way decision is conceivable. 
These are the ends for which the associated peoples of the 
world are fighting and which must be conceded them 
before there can be peace: 

(i) The destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere 
that can separately, secretly, and of its single choice dis- 
turb the peace of the world; or, if it cannot be presently 
destroyed, at the least its reduction to virtual impotence. 

(2) The settlement of every question, whether of terri- 
tory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of politi- 
cal relationship, upon the basis of the free acceptance of 
that settlement by the people immediately concerned 
and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage 
of any other nation or people which may desire a different 
settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or 
mastery. 

(3) The consent of all nations to be governed in their 
conduct toward each other by the same principles of honor 
and of respect for the common law of civilized society that 
govern the individual citizens of all modem states in their 
relations with one, another; to the end that all promises 
and covenants may be sacredly observed, no private plots 

^ For full text see Chapter XX. 

125 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

or conspiracies hatched, no selfish injuries wrought with 
impunity, and a mutual trust established upon the hand- 
some foundation of a mutual respect for right. 

(4) The establishment of an organization of peace which 
shall make it certain that the combined power of free 
nations will check every invasion of right and serve to 
make peace and justice the more secure by affording a 
definite tribunal of opinion to which all must submit and 
by which every international readjustment that cannot be 
amicably agreed upon by the peoples directly concerned 
shall be sanctioned. 

In the New York address of September 27th 
the President touched again upon the funda- 
mentals of peace, seeking to bed-rock them in 
the granite of a universal and explicit under- 
standing. He said then: 

And, as I see it, the constitution of that League of Na- 
tions and the clear definition of its objects must be a part, 
is in a sense the most essential part, of the peace settlement 
itself. It cannot be formed now. If formed now, it would 
be merely a new alliance confined to the nations associated 
against a common enemy. It is not likely that it would be 
formed after the settlement. It is necessary to guarantee 
the peace; and the peace cannot be guaranteed as an after- 
thought. The reason, to speak in plain terms again, why 
it must be guaranteed is that there will be parties to the 
peace whose promises have proved untrustworthy, and 
means must be found in connection with the peace settle- 
ment itself to remove that source of insecurity. It would 
be folly to leave the guaranty to the subsequent voluntary 
action of the governments we have seen destroy Russia and 
deceive Rumania. 

These twenty-three specific points, taken 
together, constituted President Wilson's peace 
charter for the world, and the unqualified in- 
dorsement of the Allies gave them binding 

126 



AMERICA'S MORAL OFFENSIVES 

authority. Not until the renascence of trade 
imperiahsm at Paris In February, 1919, was there 
the sHghtest disposition to question either the 
feasibihty of a League of Nations or the con- 
tractual obHgation to make it a primary and 
integral part of the Peace Treaty itself. 

The full force of the President's "moral offen- 
sives" now commenced to be felt. It was not 
only that they had won the "verdict of mankind," 
but, driving into the Central Powers as well, 
they disintegrated military and civilian morale, 
and forced the fears that made autocratic 
governments sue for peace. On October 5th, 
scarcely more than a week after the President's 
address of September 27th, the Germans begged 
an armistice, and on October 7th the Austro- 
Hungarian government presented a similar plea. 
It may be stated at this point, in answer to the 
charges of a "lone hand" and "bad faith," that 
every detail of the correspondence that followed 
was known to the Allied leaders and received 
their complete approval. 

The President, replying to Germany on Octo- 
ber 8th, asked if he was to understand definitely 
that the German government accepted the terms 
laid down in the Fourteen Points and in subse- 
quent addresses and "that its object in enter- 
ing into discussion would be only to agree upon 
the practical details of their application." He 
added also that the immediate evacuation of 
invaded territory was an essential to the good 
faith of further discussion. On October 12th 
the German government replied affirmatively, 
and on October 14th the President made this 

127 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

statement of decision : that the conditions of the 
armistice must be left to the miUtary advisers 
of the United States and the AUies, and that no 
arrangement could be accepted that did not 
provide "absolutely satisfactory safeguards and 
guaranties of the maintenance of the present 
military supremacy of the armies of the United 
States and the Allies in the field"; that an 
armistice could not be considered until submarine 
warfare ceased; and that further guaranties 
of the representative character of the German 
government would have to be given. 

On October 20th Germany accepted the new 

conditions and pointed out that she now had a 

• constitution and a government dependent for 

/ its authority on the Reichstag. On October 

/ 23d the President informed Germany that, 

having received the solemn and explicit assurance 

of the German government that it unreservedly 

accepts the terms of peace laid down in his 

address to the Congress of the United States on 

January 8, 191 8, and the principles of settlement 

enunciated in his subsequent addresses, and that 

it is ready to discuss the details of their applica- 

\ tion, he had communicated the above corre- 

\ spondence to the governments of the Allied 

\ Ppwers with the suggestion that, if they were 

disposed to effect the peace upon the terms and 

principles indicated, they will ask their military 

advisers to draw up armistice terms of such a 

\ character as to '' insure to the associated govern- 

1 ments the unrestricted power to safeguard and 

I enforce the details of the peace to which the German 

\ government has agreed,'^ 

128 



V 



AMERICA'S MORAL OFFENSIVES 

Meanwhile events in other directions had 
been moving rapidly. Replying to Austria- 
Hungary on October i8th, the President pointed 
out that a radical change had been worked in 
Point Ten, which read: "The peoples of Austria- 
Hungary, whose place among the nations we 
wish to see safeguarded and assured, should 
be accorded the freest opportunity of autono- 
mous development." 

"Since that sentence was written and uttered 
to the Congress of the United States," he said, 
"the government of the United States has recog- 
nized that a state of belligerency exists between 
the Czechoslovaks and the German and Austro- 
Hungarian Empires, and that the Czechoslovak 
National Council is a de facto belligerent govern- 
ment clothed with proper authority to direct 
the military and political affairs of the Czecho- 
slovaks. It has also recognized in the fullest 
manner the justice of the nationalistic aspira- 
tions of the Jugoslavs for freedom." 

On October 28th the Austro-Hungarian gov- 
ernment submitted to the conditions of the 
President, and on November 4th accepted 
armistice terms that amounted to a complete 
surrender. Bulgaria had already withdrawn 
on September 29th, and Turkey had capitulated 
on October 31st. On November 5th the Pres- 
ident transmitted to Germany the decision of the 
Allied governments. Subject to two quahfica- 
tions, they declared their willingness to make 
peace with the government of Germany on the 
terms of peace laid down in the President's 
address to Congress of January 8, 191 8, and 

129 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the principles of settlement enunciated in his 
subsequent addresses. The quaHfications were: 
(i) Freedom of the seas, being open to various 
interpretations, must be left to the Peace Con- 
ference, and in the discussion they "reserved to 
themselves complete freedom!" (2) Further, 
in the conditions of peace laid down in his ad- 
dress to Congress on the 8th of January, 191 8, 
the President declared that invaded territories 
must be restored as well as evacuated and made 
free. The Allied governments feel that no 
doubt ought to be allowed to exist as to what 
this provision implies. By it they understand 
that compensation will be made by Germany 
for "all damage done to the civilian population of 
the Allies and to their property by the aggres- 
sion of Germany by land, by sea, and from the 
air." 

The acceptance of the German government 
was given on October 27th; the armistice terms 
were submitted on November 8th, and were 
signed by the Germans to become effective on 
November nth. At the time the Germans had 
2,000,000 men under arms on the western front, 
and to the east there were the armies of Macken- 
sen and von Sanders. What happened to them 
was an utter spiritual collapse, a disintegration 
of morale both on the firing-line and among the 
civilian population. And history will say that 
this was due to the words of Wilson in even 
larger degree than to the hammer blows of Foch. 

There is a tendency in certain quarters to-day 
to attack the Peace Treaty on the theory that the 
German capitulation was in no sense a surrender,. 

130 



AMERICA'S MORAL OFFENSIVES 

but merely a cessation of hostilities on certain 
fixed terms. This view, as a matter of fact, is 
the very base of The Economic Consequences of 
the Peace, the book in which J. M. Keynes appeals 
to the world in behalf of Germany. The con- 
tention entirely ignores the second stipulation 
of the Allies* answer, the specific statement that 
"compensation will be made by Germany for 
ail damage done to the civil population of the 
Allies and to their property by the aggression of 
Germany by land, by sea, and from the air." 

This all-embracing clause, agreed to by the 
President, meant unconditional surrendety and 
the Germans were in no doubt as to the intent. 
Ludendorff, in his Memoirs , says: 

On October 230! or 24th Wilson's answer arrived. It was 
a strong answer to our cowardly note. This time he made 
it quite clear that the armistice conditions must be such 
as to make it impossible for Germany to resume hostilities 
and to give the powers allied against her unlimited power 
to settle themselves the details of the peace accepted by 
Germany. In my view, there could no longer be doubt 
in my mind that we must continue the fight. 1 

Hindenburg held to the same view, and on 
October 24th signed an order "for the informa-l 
tion of all troops" that made these statements: 

He (Wilson) will negotiate with Germany for peace only 
if she concedes all the demands of America's allies as to 
the internal constitutional arrangements of Germany. . . . 
Wilson's answer is a demand for unconditional surrender. 
It is thus unacceptable to us soldiers. 

The closing words were a passionate appeal to 
"continue resistance with all our strength." 
The order, however, was never promulgated. 
10 131 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Hindenburg and LudendorfF were both over- 
ruled, and the note of submission went forward 
to the President, a note that accepted the terms 
that every German fighting-man knew to be 
unconditional surrender. 

A second opportunity to choose between war 
or surrender was afforded the Germans by the 
presentation of the armistice terms. A more 
definite and detailed document was never framed. 
It set down provision after provision that were 
the essence of unconditional surrender, and at 
every point it made clear what the Peace Treaty 
itself would contain. It was in the power of the 
Germans to denounce the terms as being in 
violation of the President's assurances of a "just 
peace." They made no such denunciation. 
Instead they signed and accepted the armistice 
terms, and it remained for an English economist, 
writing a year later, to discover that the Germans 
did not surrender and that the Allies were false 
to promises. 



VIII 



THE president's "pARTIZAN APPEAL " 



THE congressional elections in November, 
191 8, merit detailed consideration by reason 
of the sweep and force of their consequences. 
Not only were ugly passions aroused that shat- 
tered domestic unity, turning the United States 
over to a very madness of pull and haul, but the 
results worked an evil change in Europe as well, 
giving the elder statesmen of the Allies the hope 
that "practical programs" might be substituted 
for "idealistic theories." Only by analysis of 
the various incidents can clear understanding be 
gained of an action that, on its face, bears every 
appearance of aberration. 

In September various Democratic members of 
Congress waited upon the President and told 
him frankly that if he desired to retain a party 
majority in the House and Senate his one hope 
was to make an open, non-partizan appeal to 
the people. They were explicit in the statement 
that the Democratic organization itself was in 
no position to conduct a vigorous campaign, and 
with a certain approach to resentment gave him 
specific explanations. For more than a year 
the party had been without leadership, as Vance 
McCormick, chairman of the Democratic Na- 
tional Committee, had devoted himself exclu- 

133 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

sively to the direction of the War Trade Board. 
This lack of executive authority, and the Presi- 
dent's own failure to act as a party leader, had 
resulted naturally in the disintegration of ma- 
chinery and in a war chest too depleted to meet 
even the mechanical expenses of a campaign. 
On the other hand. Will H. Hays, chairman of 
the Republican National Committee, was giving 
entire time to travel and conference in the in- 
terests of party harmony and enthusiasm, as 
well as collecting funds in larger amounts than 
had been known since the days of Hanna. 

The President, always impatient of the me- 
chanics of politics, was doubly unwilling to con- 
sider them at a moment when the fate of a world 
hung in the balance. Somewhat curtly, and very 
decisively, he rejected the suggestion made him, 
and turned to the tremendous questions that 
pressed upon him. Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, 
and Turkey were trembling on the verge of sur- 
render, and the notes of the President, each one 
with the cutting edge of a sword, were slashing 
the bonds that held these countries to continued 
support of the Imperial German government. 
Not only did the Allies have instant and intimate 
knowledge of every detail of this correspondence, 
but they indorsed it so fully as to give the Presi- 
dent authority to speak for them. Far better 
than any one in America they knew the exhaus- 
tion of their own countries and the strength of 
Germany, and both statesmen and soldiers fol- 
lowed with eagerness every point in the Presi- 
dent's diplomatic correspondence, seeing hope 
of winning by w^ords the victory that might 

134 



THE PRESIDENTS "PARTIZAN APPEAL*' 

otherwise have to be purchased by still 
greater expenditures of blood and money and 
suffering. 

On October 13th, at the most critical stage of 
the correspondence, Mr. Roosevelt publicly de- 
nounced the President for attempting to bring 
about a ** negotiated peace/' accused him of 
"bad faith" to the Allies, and berated him for 
his "weakness." As if in response to a signal, 
the Republican speakers rose in their places and 
elaborated the attack. Almost instantly the 
plan of campaign was broadened to take in the 
Fourteen Points. To be sure, it was the case 
that these specifications of the President, de- 
clared in his speech of January 8th, had been 
accepted unquestioningly by the people of the 
United States and by the Allied governments as 
well, and nothing was more obvious than that 
the high justice of these pledges had been po- 
tent factors in winning the approval and support 
of neutral nations. Mr. Roosevelt, however, 
sounded a general assault by his statement that 
"When it comes to peace negotiations, we should 
emphatically repudiate these famous Fourteen 
Points." 

The campaign, in its first stages, seemed so 
entirely political, rather than popular, thav, rmall 
attention was paid to it. Certain partizan Sena- 
tors had spared no effort to embarrass and harass 
the administration in its prosecution of the war, 
but never at any time had the people shown any 
signs of being gulled. The President had the 
conviction that Americans were interested but 
little in the election, and he was particularly of 

1.35 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the opinion that the reactionary Senate group 
did not reflect the sentiment of the Repubhcan 
rank and file in any degree. As time went by, 
however, two things became increasingly appar- 
ent; first, that the so-called "Old Guard" was 
in undisputed control of the Republican ma- 
chinery; second, that the forces of "invisible 
government" were preparing to emerge from the 
retirement thrust upon the unities of war. 
Realizing that German defeat was only a matter 
of weeks. Big Business felt that the time was 
ripe for a successful attempt to regain the power 
lost in 191 2. What took evil and definite shape 
in the shadows was no mere uprising of a partizan 
clique, but a carefully planned revolt against 
Wilson and his "crazy ideals." The orders that 
went out from the headquarters of Privilege 
were peremptory, and money in huge amounts 
followed the orders. The hands of the President 
were to be upheld no longer; they were to he tied. 
The movement's power in men, money, and 
machinery began to be appreciated, and appre- 
hension took the place of easy confidence. 

There was not a man in the whole war ma- 
chinery, Republican or Democrat, who did not 
react to the gravity of the situation. It was 
not only that a Republican majority in the House 
or Senate meant divided leadership at a moment 
when the President's undisputed central control 
was a necessity, but it was a certainty that 
such result would be regarded by Europe as a 
repudiation of the President and his war policies. 
The Central Powers and the Allied governments 
alike would interpret it as a weakening of our 

136 



THE PRESIDENT'S "PARTIZAN APPEAL" 

war will, and while the enemy would be strength- 
ened, our associates would be correspondingly 
depressed. It was not a party that was at 
stake, but America, and Americans, without 
regard to political beliefs, urged the President 
to reconsider his decision with respect to an 
appeal to the people. He did so, and on October 

24th issued the following statement: ' 

i 

My Fellow-countrymen: The congressional elections 
are at hand. They occur in the most critical period our 
country has ever faced or is likely to face in our time. 
If you have approved of my leadership and wish me to 
continue to be your unembarrassed spokesman in affairs 
at home and abroad, I earnestly beg that you will ex- 
press yourself unmistakably to that effect by returning a 
Democratic majority to both the Senate and the House of 
Representatives. 

I am your servant and will accept your judgment without 
cavil, but my power to administer the great trust assigned 
to me by the Constitution would be seriously impaired 
should your judgment be adverse, and I must frankly tell 
you so because so many critical issues depend upon your 
verdict. No scruple or taste must in grim times like 
these be allowed to stand in the way of speaking the 
plain truth. 

I have no thougnt of suggesting that any political party 
is paramount in matters of patriotism. I feel too deeply 
the sacrifices which have been made in this war by all our 
citizens, irrespective of party affiliations, to harbor such an 
idea. I mean only that the difficulties and delicacies of 
our present task are of a sort that makes it imperatively 
necessary that the nation should give its undivided support 
to the government under a unified leadership, and that a 
Republican Congress would divide the leadership. 

The leaders of the minority in the present Congress have 
unquestionably been pro-war, but they have been anti- 
administration. At almost every turn since we entered 
the war they have sought to take the choice of policy 

.137 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

and the conduct of the war out of my hands and put it 
under the control of instrumentaUties of their own 
choosing. 

This is no time either for divided counsels or for divided 
leadership. Unity of command is as necessary now in 
civil action as it is upon the field of battle. If the control 
of the House and the Senate should be taken away from the 
party now in power, an opposing majority could assume 
control of the legislation and oblige all action to be taken 
amid contest and obstruction. 

The return of a Republican majority to either House of 
the Congress would, moreover, be interpreted on the other 
side of the water as a repudiation of my leadership. Spokes- 
men of the Republican party are urging you to elect a 
Republican Congress in order to back up and support the 
President, but, even if they should in this impose upon 
some credulous voters on this side of the water, they would 
impose on no one on the other side. It is well understood 
there as well as here that the Republican leaders desire 
not so much to support the President as to control him.,,^^ 

The peoples of the Allied countries with whom we are 
associated against Germany are quite familiar with the sig- 
nificance of the elections. They would find it very difficult 
to believe that the voters of the United States had chosen 
to support their President by electing to the Congress a 
majority controlled by those who are not in fact in sym- 
pathy with the attitude and action of the administration. 

I need not tell you, my fellow-countrymen, that I am 
asking your support not for my own sake or for the sake 
of a political party, but for the sake of the nation itself in 
order that its inward duty of purpose may be evident to 
all the world. In ordinary times I would not feel at liberty 
to make such an appeal to you. In ordinary times divided 
counsels can be endured without permanent hurt to the 
country. But these are not ordinary times. 

If in these critical days it is your wish to sustain me 
with undivided minds, I beg that you will say so in a way 
which it will not be possible to misunderstand, either here at 
home or among our associates on the other side of the sea. 
I submit my difficulties and my hopes to you. 

138 



THE PRESIDENTS "PARTIZAN APPEAL" 

Such an appeal was in no sense extraordinary. 
As a matter of fact, it had high warrant in 
distinguished precedent. In various elections 
George Washington pleaded for "united leader- 
ship," and Lincoln specifically urged upon the 
people the unwisdom of "swapping horses in 
midstream." It was Lincoln also who made the 
following election statement: 

There is an important sense in which the government 
is distinct from the administration. One is perpetual, the 
other is temporary and changeable. A man may be loyal 
to his government and yet oppose the peculiar principles and 
methods of the administration. I should regret to see the 
day in which the people should cease to express intelligent, 
honest, generous criticism upon the policy of their rulers. 
It is true, however, that, in time of great peril, the dis- 
tinction ought not to be so strongly urged; for then criti- 
cism may be regarded by the enemy as opposition, and may 
weaken the wisest and best efforts for the public safety. 
If there ever was such a time, it seems to me it is now. 

In a speech delivered at Boone, Iowa, October 
II, 1898, President McKinley pleaded for a 
RepubHcan Congress in these words: 

This is no time for divided councils. If I would have 
you remember anything I have said in these desultory 
remarks, it would be to remember at this critical hour in S 
the nation's history we must not be divided. The triumphs 
of the war are yet to be written in the articles of peace. 

Theodore Roosevelt, when a candidate for 
Governor of New York, appealed to the people 
to give President McKinley a RepubHcan Con- 
gress, saying: 

Remember that whether you will or not, your votes this 
year will be viewed by the nations of Europe from one 

139 



f\ 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

standpoint only. They will draw no fine distinctions. A 
refusal to sustain the President this year will, in their 
eyes, be read as a refusal to sustain the war and to sustain 
the efforts of our peace commission to secure the fruit of 
war. Such a refusal may not inconceivably bring about a 
rupture of the peace negotiations. It will give heart to 
our defeated antagonists; it will make possible the inter- 
ference of those doubtful neutral nations who in this 
struggle have wished us ill. 

Ex-President Benjamin Harrison, also urging 
the people to *'stand behind the President'' by 
electing a Republican Congress, said: 

If the word goes forth that the people of the United 
States are standing solidly behind the President, the task 
of the peace commissioners will be easy, but if there is a 
break in the ranks — if the Democrats score a telling victory, 
if Democratic Senators, Congressmen, and governors are 
elected — Spain will see in it a gleam of hope, she will take 
fresh hope, and a renewal of hostilities, more war, may be 
necessary to secure to us what we have already won. 

Theodore Roosevelt, as President, did not 
feel that such an appeal was improper even 
in time of peace, for on August i8, 1906, he wrote 
as follows to James E. Watson, then the Republi- 
can whip : 

If there were only partizan issues involved in this con- 
test, I should hesitate to say anything publicly in reference 
thereto. But I do not feel that such is the case. On the 
contrary, I feel that all good citizens who have the welfare 
of America at heart should appreciate the immense amount 
that has been accomplished by ^he present Congress, 
organized as it is, and the urgent need of keeping this 
organization in power. To change the leadership and or- 
ganization of the House at this time means to bring con- 
fusion upon those who have been successfully engaged 
in the steady working out of a great and comprehensive 

140 



THE PRESIDENTS "PARTIZAN APPEAL" 

scheme for the betterment of our social, industrial, and 
civic conditions. Such a change would substitute a pur- 
poseless confusion, a violent and hurtful oscillation between 
the positions of the extreme radical and the extreme re- 
actionary for the present orderly progress along the lines 
of a carefully thought out policy. >f 

In every war in America's history the man in 
the White House at the time has asked to have 
his party majority confirmed at the polls, and 
common sense approves the wisdom and justice 
of such a request. It is upon the President, 
named in the Constitution as Commander-in- 
Chief, that war responsibility rests, and fairness 
and prudence join to point the necessity of 
guarding him against partizan harassment. 

Mr. Wilson's appeal, however, was denounced 
as "unprecedented," and straightway subjected 
to bitter attack. Mr. Hays, chairman of the 
Republican National Committee, in the course 
of an intemperate speech, charged that the Presi- 
dent had impugned the loyalty of Republicans 
and denied their patriotism, and said: 

A more ungracious, more unjust, more wanton, more 
mendacious accusation was never made by the most reck- 
less stump orator, much less by the President of the United 
States, for partizan purposes. It is an insult, not only to 
every loyal Republican in Congress, but to every loyal 
Republican in the land. It fully merits the resentment 
which rightfully and surely will find expression at the polls. 

Mr. Roosevelt declared that the President had 
asked the people to elect a Congress made up 
exclusively of Democrats, and in his Carnegie 
Hall speech made this flat statement, "No man 
who is a Republican, and no man, whether a Re- 

141 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

publican or not, who puts loyalty to the people 
ahead of loyalty to the servants of the people is 
to have a voice in determining the greatest 
questions ever brought before this nation.'* 
This, of course, was nonsense. What the Presi- 
dent asked for was not a unanimous vote, but 
a majority vote. Had every Democrat been 
elected, or had every Democrat been defeated, 
neither party would have had two-thirds of the 
Senate, the majority necessary to ratify a peace 
treaty, for instance. Regardless of the elec- 
tion's outcome, Republican votes retained im- 
portance and power. 

As the campaign progressed the hand of Big 
Business became increasingly apparent. Mr. 
Hnys, carried away by his bitterness, betrayed 
true objectives in these words: 

Hut Mr. Wilson's real purpose has nothing; to do with the 
conduct of tlic war. Me wants just two things. One 
is full power to settle the war precisely as he and his sole, 
unelected, unappointed, unconfirmed personal adviser 
may determine. The other is full power as the "unem- 
barrassed spokesman in affairs at home,** as he actually 
demands in his statement, to reconstruct in peace-times 
the great industrial affairs of the nation in the same way, 
in unimpeded conformity with whatever socialistic doctrines, 
whatever unlimited government ownership notions, what- 
ever hazy whims may happen to possess him at the time, 
but first and above all with absolute commitment to free 
trade with all the world, thus giving to Germany out of 
hand the fruits of a victory greater than she could win by 
fighting a hundred years. A Republican Congress will 
never assent to that. Do you want a Congress that will? 
Germany does. 

Germany looks to Mr. Wilson to get it for her, as he 
pledged himself to do in one of the few of his famous articles 

142 



THE PRESIDENTS "PARTIZAN APPEAL" 

which are explicable. Germany understands that. See 
the New York JVorldy spokesman of the administration, 
of last Saturday, and read the testimony of Henry C. 
Emery, former head of the Tariff Commission, just returned 
from seven months in Germany. "The German people,'* 
he says, "seemed to realize that in President Wilson lay 
their only salvation. They have turned to him in the 
belief that he is the one great political leader who can be 
trusted to make a permanent peace which will permit 
equal economic development." He is. All others demand 
that the Germans shall pay the full penalty of their crimes. 

To-day, when the German vote is again a 
power to be soothed and wooed, the RepubHcan. 
leaders are crying out against the President for 
his harsh treatment of the Central Powers, but 
at the time of Mr. Hays's speech the war was 
still on, the German vote was cowed, and it was 
good campaign strategy to denounce the Presi- 
dent as the friend of Germany, the champion of 
a "negotiated peace'* instead of the uncondi- 
tional surrender that the warriors of the Home 
Guards demanded. Under all the buncombe, 
however, there coiled the selfish purposes of 
reaction — protective tariffs, ship subsidies, special 
privileges, private ownership, and the feudal 
operation of free mstitutions. 

The campaign of the Democrats, necessarily 
weak by lack of funds, was made still more 
futile by a combination o^ unfortunate circum- 
stances. At the time when they were, preparing 
to take the field in earnest the sweep of the 
influenza epidemic put an end to pubHc meetings. 
It is doubtful if the speech of the President had 
been read carefully by one citizen in ten thou- 
sand. Certainly there was no remembrance of 

143 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the paragraph in which he said: "I have no 
thought of suggesting that any poUtical party is 
paramount in matters of patriotism. I feel too 
deeply the sacrifices which have been made in 
this war by all our citizens, irrespective of party 
affiliations, to harbor such an idea." Repub- 
lican papers drove home the lie that the Presi- 
dent had said that Republicans were not patriots. 
Democratic speakers had no chance to answer it. 
The fundamental mistake, however, was in 
permitting "patriotism" to remain the issue. 
In no sense was this the nature of the fight. As 
in 191 2, the battle-lines were drawn between 
progress and reaction, between politics and 
public service, between the hosts of democracy 
and the forces of Special Privilege. This align- 
ment was not touched upon; the real issues were 
not made clear. Greatest misfortune of all, 
the President did not have at his back the 
inspired, unselfish fighting forces that swept 
him to victory in 191 2 and 1916. As has been 
pointed out, his rooted distaste for the business 
of appointments had blinded him to the impor- 
tance of putting none but progressivists on guard, 
and as a result of his neglect the movement had 
fallen into discouragement and disintegration. 
Bad enough prior to 1917, it was a condition 
that grew into hopelessness after America's 
entrance into the war. The leading reaction- 
aries of the country were permitted to capture 
the War Department and a majority of the newly 
created civil bodies, and each man, as a matter 
of course, swiftly installed his standpat following. 

Not for a day nor an hour did a single one 

144 



THE PRESIDENT'S "PARTIZAN APPEAL" 

of them surrender his political convictions or 
domestic prejudices. Under direct partizan 
inspiration reactionary organizations, such as 
the National Security League and the American 
Defense Society, sprang into evil being. A 
chauvinistic hue and cry was raised at once, 
and while "disloyalty" was the asserted object 
of attack, the real purpose was to crush the 
liberal movement in the United States. Men 
and women of any reputation as progressivists 
were excluded from war-work and even subjected 
to continual harassment and attack. 

It was these forces that were foremost in 
crying that the President had "insulted the 
patriotism" of every Republican. The Demo- 
cratic organization, utterly demoralized, could 
not beat back the lie. The progressivist move- 
ment, that might have stemmed the tide, was 
scattered and besmirched. As a consequence, 
the people reverted to partizanship, and, without 
thought of the war or the peace, rushed to the 
polls and voted on the question as to whether 
Republicans were "traitors." My feeling at 
the time, and my conviction to-day, were ex- 
pressed in the following letter sent under date 
of November 8th: 

My DEAR Mr. President, — You have indeed made 
this war a war to "make the world safe for democracy." 
But it was not that sort of war when it began. And it 
was not that sort of war when we entered it. 

Before we got into it, our entrance had its chief impul- 
sion from our most reactionary and least democratic ele- 
ments. Consequently nearly all our most progressive 
and liberal leaders had marked themselves as opposed to 
it. The Republican representatives of Big Business made 

145 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

a clear record of patriotic support of what was then, in 
outward appearance, a reactionary trade-imperialistic war. 
Many radicals, progressives, and Democrats spoke and 
voted against it. 

When you raised it to the level of a war for democracy, 
you rallied to the support of the war all the progressive 
and democratic elements. The Big Business patriots went 
with you, ostensibly on your own terms, because they saw 
that only on your terms could the war be won. They 
came into conspicuous leadership as Red Cross executives, 
as heads of State Councils of Defense, as patriotic dollar- 
a-year men. 

All the radical or liberal friends of your anti-imperialist 
war policy were either silenced or intimidated. The Depart- 
ment of Justice and the Post-office were allowed to silence 
or intimidate them. There was no voice left to argue 
for your sort of peace. 

When we came to this election, the reactionary Republi- 
cans had a clean record of anti-Hun imperialistic patriotism. 
Their opponents, your friends, were often either besmirched 
or obscure. No one had been able to tell the public what 
was really at issue in the elections. The reactionaries 
knew, but they concealed it. They could appeal to their 
patriotism against what looked like a demand for a partizan 
verdict for the Democrats. The Democrats, afraid of 
raising the class issue, went on making a political campaign. 
Secretary Daniels and you spoke too late. 

It seems to me if the defeat is to be repaired, the issue 
as between the imperialists and the democracy will have 
to be stated. You will have to give out your program for 
peace and reconstruction and find friends for it. Other- 
wise the reactionary patrioteers will defeat the whole 
immediate future of reform and progress. 

Respectfully, 

George Creel. 

Every one of our present troubles traces back 
to the election of 191 8. Lodge was lifted from 
mediocrity to evil power, and has been able to 
translate his personal hatreds into national 

146 



THE PRESIDENT'S "PARTIZAN APPEAL*' 

policies. The war aims of the United States 
have been repudiated and we have been kept 
out of the League of Nations. Worst of all, 
the Wilson program for reconstruction — a great 
plan for the restoration of our national health — 
was handed over to the mercy of such men as 
Penrose, Smoot, Watson, Sherman, and Brande- 
gee. Had it been the dehberate intent of the 
electorate to destroy America nationally and 
internationally, it could not have worked more 
surely. 
11 



IX 

WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

IT is safe to say that on the day of the armistice 
Woodrow Wilson was the most loved and 
admired man in all the world. In foreign lands 
they burned candles before his picture, named 
squares and streets in his honor, and hailed him 
as an apostle of light, the invincible champion 
of human rights; in the United States the sweep 
of victory cleansed the popular mind of prejudice 
and irritations, leaving only an intense apprecia- 
tion of the man's true greatness. With courage 
and devotion never surpassed, the President 
threw this universal popularity upon the gaming- 
board of Paris, risking himself in one tremen- 
dous hazard for a peace of justice, a peace of 
permanence. 

As clearly as though the future mirrored itself 
before him, he saw the tragedy of reaction and 
intrigue that would stage itself at the Peace 
Conference. Never at any time under delusions 
as to the character of the statesrrten of Europe, 
he knew well that the lifting of war's necessities 
would restore them to their old habits of thought 
— habits formed through long years of tortuous 
diplomacy, "practical" politics, and careful 
balancing of power. What they had promised 
in the hour of defeat, when American aid was 

148 



WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

the one salvation, was bound to lose importance 
in the hour when a cruel and merciless enemy 
lay at their feet. Against an enforced idealism, 
resented by their experience as "visionary'* and 
"Utopian,'' there would be a revolt of minds 
accustomed to think in terms of victor and 
vanquished, spoils and revenge. 

What more natural? For close to five years 
the armies of the Central Powers had ravaged 
Belgium, France, Italy, and Serbia, their sub- 
marines had swept the seas of Allied shipping, 
and their aircraft had wrought desolation in 
great cities. For close to five years, through 
no fault of their own, French, Enghsh, Itahans, 
Belgians, and Serbians had sat face to face 
with death and despair, and the future that 
stretched out before them was gray with the 
smoke that rose from burning homes. A League 
of Nations, a peace of justice, were fine faiths 
when a world shook to the sound of guns, but 
with victory won, what more intelligent than 
to attend first to the redress of immediate 
wrongs, to the exaction of indemnities, to the 
imposition of punishments that would rid them 
at once and forever of the German menace.^ 
Then the ideals! 

There was no doubt in the mind of the Presi- 
dent as to the sincerity of the AUied peoples. 
Their passion of behef in the righteousness and 
practicability of a new order came to him across 
the sea, inexpressibly inspiring. He knew, how- 
ever, that between citizenship and government, 
especially in European countries, there yawned 
a gulf not to be bridged without infinite time 

149 






THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

and labor, and that so far as the Peace Confer- 
ence was concerned, decision would be in the 
hands of politicians, the young more plausible 
than the old, but all master opportunists su- 
premely skilled in the art of appealing to the 
human passions of gain and revenge. 

Working also to their advantage was the fact 
that the surrender of Germany was in every 
sense unconditional. It was not only the case 
that the Allies held the written promise of Ger- 
many to make compensation "for all damage 
done to the civilian population of the Allies 
and to their property by the aggression of 
Germany by land, by sea and from the air." 
There was also that grim provision in the armis- 
tice itself "that any future claims and demands 
of the Allies and the United States of America 
remain unaffected." It was legitimately in the 
power of the Peace Conference to present just 
claims that would put the Central Powers in 
bondage for generations to come, that would 
destroy them forever as a free people, an inde- 
pendent nationality. 

The one restraint was in the Fourteen Points, 
accepted by the Allied governments as the basis 
of settlement. Better than any one else, how- 
ever, the President knew that these terms were 
far removed from being an easily enforceable 
pledge in the sense that a contract is enforceable. 
They were articles of faith, rather than the hard 
and fast clauses of a commercial agreement, and 
if they were to be dealt with in a mean, legalistic 
spirit, every one of them could be denied without 
loss of face. 

ISO 



WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

This phase of the difficulty was exaggerated 
by the situation in America itself. Throughout 
the whole of October, during the congressional 
campaign, the Republican party had indulged 
in wholesale repudiation of the Fourteen Points, 
denouncing them as part of a mollycoddle policy 
inspired by secret concern for Germany's wel- 
fare. "Blood and iron" was the prize election 
compound as far as the Republicans were con- 
cerned, and nothing was more abhorrent to their 
thought than the idea of a "negotiated peace,'* 
a peace that considered Germany's future in 
any degree. Mr. Hays, chairman of the Re- 
publican National Committee, sounded the key- 
note when he declared that America "will 
uphold her allies in whatever reparation they 
may exact for the frightful outrages inflicted 
upon them by the accursed Huns." And the 
Republicans had won the election! Already, 
in every capital in Europe, statesmen were ad- 
justing themselves to the new situation, secretly 
rejoicing in the turn of the wheel that seemed 
to lift the burdensome obligations that had been 
placed upon them by the Fourteen Points. 

For the President to have stayed in Wash- 
ington would have been the easy way. En- 
throned in the White House, high above the 
jangles of Paris, it was in his power to have 
placed entire responsibility upon an appointed 
Peace Commission, reserving an Olympian de- 
tachment for himself. But even as he knew 
that this would save him his popularity, just as 
surely did he know that it would lose the peace. 
The one chance for the League of Nations, for 

151 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

a peace of justice and permanence, was for him 
to go to Paris in person, to sit at the Peace Table 
himself, fighting face to face for the fulfilment 
of the pledges that he had framed. To sit in 
Washington was to invite defeat. With a situa- 
tion that would change with every word, it was 
idle to dream that intelligent communication 
could be maintained by cable and wireless. 
His absence would be regarded as the assumption 
of a dictator's role, and the premiers would be 
quick to use it to their advantage. Advice and 
counsel, unless in line with their wishes, would 
be construed as ultimatums and commands. 

There was also the possibility that his presence 
might stabilize the situation in large degree. 
It would disprove the theory of "autocratic 
aloofness," and, by giving direct evidence of a 
willingness to share in common counsel, might 
result in larger regard for the American position. 
With all the passion of his soul the President 
desired a Conference of friends, unchanged, 
unchanging, animated in peace by the same 
ideals that had thrilled in war, and had it been 
necessary to achieve such result he would have 
made the pilgrimage on his knees. These were 
the considerations that formed his decision to go 
to Paris as head of the American Commission to 
Negotiate Peace — a decision made in spite of the 
attack of political enemies and the implorations 
of his friends. The responsibility was still his: 
he would not shirk it! 

The general ignorance of our basic law was 
never more apparent than in the widely held 
belief that the Senate is part of the treaty-making 

152 



WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

power of government, and that the President 
acted autocratically in refusing to take that 
august body to Paris with him in its entirety. 
The Constitution, as a matter of fact, places 
the foreign relations of the nation in the hands 
of the President alone. No one else has power or 
voice. The making of a treaty with any foreign 
nation is the duty of the President, and responsi- 
bility rests upon him and upon no other. The 
sole business of the Senate is to ratify or to 
reject the treaty when the President has made 
it. In this, as in a score of other ways, the 
Constitution is unwieldy, for it was WTitten in a 
day when we boasted of our isolation, and its 
framers did not conceive of a time when foreign 
relations would furnish the country its most 
important and complex questions. Until the 
defect is remedied by amendment, however, 
it is the lazu, and the President was faced by a 
responsibility that he could not have evaded 
had he so desired. 

The selection of the personnel of the Commis- 
sion came next, and, as is generally the case 
in the United States, personalities dwarfed prin- 
ciples. Within a week both press and people 
were far more concerned with the men who 
were to go to Paris than with what they were to 
do in Paris. The number decided upon was 
four, exclusive of the President, and two of the 
places were filled from the first. The Secretary 
of State, by virtue of his position, was compelled 
to be chosen, although there was the exact knowl- 
edge that he would contribute nothing to the 
general strength. Colonel House was equally in- 

153 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

evitable, owing to the President's continuous use 
of his services in foreign aflFairs and the intimate 
knowledge of European conditions thus gained. 

Looking back, there is no question that much 
bitterness and antagonism would have been 
averted had the President selected ex-President 
Taft and Mr. Root for the two remaining places. 
They were logical choices, for at the time both 
were more or less committed to the League of 
Nations and to a peace of justice, and the ap- 
pointment of these eminent Republicans would 
have appealed to the country as big and broad. 
After prolonged deliberation, the President de- 
termined against them. He — knew that the 
Allied countries seethed in unrest, and that 
radicalism was the ruling force in Europe, not 
reaction. Mr. Root had failed with his Russian 
mission by reason of his reputation as America's 
foremost champion of the "capitalistic system," 
and the President feared that his presence as a 
peace delegate would work prejudice at the out- 
set. As for Mr. Taft, there was his indelible 
record as a genial, peace-loving soul who never 
let convictions stand in the way of concord. 
Although the moving spirit in the League to 
Enforce Peace, and an ardent champion of the 
President's program throughout the war, he 
commenced to wabble at the beginning of the 
congressional campaign, and by the time his 
Republican associates had finished their per- 
suasions his performances were truly acrobatic. 
As the President saw it, the prime qualification 
of a commissioner was an ability to hold to 
convictions for more than a day at a time. 

154 



WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

With these two men eUminated, the field of 
selection was left bare and sterile. Judge 
Hughes might have passed muster, although this 
is doubtful, but in his case the President was 
explicit. The evasions of the ex-justice in the 
campaign of 1916, the belief among many people 
that he was angling for the German vote, his re- 
fusal to take a position on any question of the day, 
had disgusted the President even more than it had 
chilled the Republican party. As for Mr. Roose- 
velt, his antagonism to the Fourteen Points was 
open and bitter, and throughout the campaign he 
had stood for a "dictated peace," insisting that 
America was without right to interfere in the im- 
position of such terms as the Allies saw fit. W^hen 
it came to making a selection from the Senate the 
case was hopeless. From Senator Lodge straight 
down the line every Republican had followed 
Mr. Roosevelt, and stood committed irrevocably 
against the Fourteen Points that had been 
accepted by the Allies as the base of settlement. 

Never very patient in such matters, for the 
business of appointment was always an irrita- 
tion to him, the President ended his difficulties 
by selecting Secretary of War Baker and Mr. 
Henry White. The choice of Mr. Baker was a 
wise one, for, whatever his lacks in other direc- 
tions, he has a mind that is as quick as it is 
tireless, as deep as it is brilliant, and he is never 
more impressive than in those mental clashes 
that call for the nice commingling of firmness 
and adroitness. Realizing, as the President did 
not, that his presence was more necessary in the 
United States than in Paris, Mr. Baker declined 

155 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the honor, an exhibition of unselfish devotion to 
duty for which he has never been given credit. 
The man to have put in his place was ex-Secre- 
tary McAdoo, not only by reason of his force and 
genius, but because of the fact that his control of 
the Treasury throughout the war had given him 
an intimate familiarity with European condi- 
tions arid needs. There was never any chance 
of this, however, for the President's horror of 
nepotism is close akin to mania. Gen. Tasker 
H. Bliss, while a man of rare scholarship and 
very real ability, stood in the public mind merely 
as a soldier. The selection of Mr. Henry White 
was a very honest effort to please the Republicans 
as well as a very sincere attempt to strengthen 
the Commission by a very necessary note. Mr. 
White had been an ambassador to Italy and 
France by the appointment of Republican 
Presidents, had served as the head of many 
American delegations to international confer- 
ences, and he knew the European diplomatic 
mind as a fox knows its burrow. 

As a matter of fact, however, the American 
Commission to Negotiate Peace was not an im- 
portant body in the true sense of the word. 
When one thought of France, England, and 
Italy it was not in terms of commissions, 
but in terms of Sonnino, Clemenceau, Lloyd 
George and Orlando. Just as each of these was 
the sole source of power, his nation's picked 
champion, so was it a foregone conclusion that 
Woodrow Wilson would have to stand out as 
America's source of power, America's picked 
champion. What forecast itself was no round- 

156 



WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

table argument, shared in by scores of com- 
missioners, but a grapple o^ four wills, a test of 
strength confined to four chosen leaders. What 
the President needed on the Commission, and 
he knew it, was not counselors, but men who 
woul^^^^ard his hack, 

'he truly important body — and this the 
President realized from the first — was the group 
of experts that went along with the Commission, 
the pick of the country's most famous specialists 
in finance, history, economics, international law, 
colonial questions, map-making, ethnic dis- 
tinctions, and all those other matters that were 
to come up at the Peace Conference. They 
constituted the President's arsenal of facts, and 
even on board the George Washington^ in the 
very first conference, he made clear his de- 
pendence upon them. 

"You are, in truth, my advisers," he said, 
"for when I ask you for information I will have 
no way of checking it up, and must act upon it 
unquestioningly. We will be deluged with claims 
plausibly and convincingly presented. It will be 
your task to establish the truth or falsity of these 
claims out of your specialized knowledges, so 
that my positions may be taken fairly and 
intelligently." 

It was this expert advice that he depended 
upon, and it was a well of information that never 
failed him. At the head of the financiers and 
economists were such men as Bernard Baruch, 
Herbert Hoover, Norman Davis, and Vance 
McCormick. As head of the War Industries 
Board, in many respects the most powerful of 

157 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

all the civil organizations called into being by 
the war, Mr. Baruch had won the respect and 
confidence of American business by his courage, 
honesty, and rare ability. At his side were such 
men as Frank W. Taussig, chairman of the 
Tariff Commission; Alex. Legg, general man- 
ager of the International Harvester Com- 
pany; and Charles McDowell, manager of the 
Fertilizer and Chemical Departments of Armour 
& Co. — both men familiar with business con- 
ditions and customs in every country in the 
world; Leland Summers, an international me- 
chanical engineer and an expert in manufactur- 
ing, chemicals, and steel; James C. Pennie, the 
international patent lawyer; Frederick Neilson 
and Chandler Anderson, authorities on interna- 
tional law; and various others of equal caliber. 
Mr. Hoover was aided and advised by the 
men who were his representatives in Europe 
throughout the war, and Mr. McCormick, head 
of the War Trade Board, gathered about him 
in Paris all of the men who had handled trade 
matters for him in the various countries of the 
world. 
, Mr. Davis, representing the Treasury Depart- 

\ mentj had as his associates Mr. Thomas W. 
\ Lamont, Mr. Albert Strauss, and Jeremiah 
\ Smith of Boston. 

\ Dr. Sidney E. Mezes, president of the College 

\ of the City of New York, went with the President 
at the head of a brilliant group of specialists, 
all of whom had been working for a year and 
more on the problems that would be presented 
\ at the Peace Conference. Among the more 
\ 158 



\ 



WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

important may be mentioned: Prof. Charles 
H. Raskins, dean of the Graduate School of 
Harvard University, specialist on Alsace-Lor- 
raine and Belgium; JDr. Isaiah Bowman, di- 
rector of the American Geographical Society, 
general territorial specialist; Prof. Allyn A. 
Young, head of the Department of Economics at 
Cornell; George Louis Beer, formerly of Colum- 
bia, and an authority on colonial possessions; 
Prof. W. L. Westermann, head of the History 
Department at the University of W^isconsin and 
specialist on Turkey; R. H. Lord, professor 
of history at Harvard, specialist on Russia and 
Poland; Roland B. Dixon, professor of ethnog- 
raphy at Harvard; Prof. Clive Day, head of the 
Department of Economics at Yale, specialist 
on the Balkans; W. E. Lunt, professor of his- 
tory at Haverford College, specialist on northern 
Italy; Charles Seymour, professor of history at 
Yale, speciaHst on Austria-Hungary; Mark Jef- 
ferson, professor of geography at Michigan 
State Normal, and Prof. James T. Shotwell, 
professor of history at Columbia. 

These groups were the President's real coun- 
selors and advisers, and there was not a day 
throughout the Peace Conference that he did 
not call upon them and depend upon them. 

And so the expedition sailed. As the George 
Washington left its anchorage and slipped down 
the Hudson to the sea, a thousand whistles 
screamed, a million onlookers cheered, and a 
great city rocked to the waves of an exultant 
patriotism. An old naval officer, standing on 
the deck, recalled the return of Dewey in 1898, 

159 




THE WAR, THE W0RLD,1AND WILSON 

the madness of welcome that awaited the hero 
of Manila, and reflected in bitterness that in 
less than a year the cheers had turned to abuse. 
He harked back to Washington, beloved and 
honored in the day of victory, yet leaving office 
in humiliation and heartsickness, followed by 
jeers and imprecations. "We are people of the 
hive," he said. "When the king bee has per- 
formed we kill him." 

Signs were not wanting to support the gloomy 
prophecy. Already the signal fires of partizan- 
ship were blazing from every hilltop, and Re- 
publican leaders were sending the burning arrow 
from state to state. On November 27th, five 
days before the President's departure, Mr. Roose- 
velt had cried this message to Europe, plain 
intimation that the Republican majority in the 
Senate would support the Allies in any repudia- 
tion of the League of Nations and the Fourteen 
Points : 

Our allies and our enemies and Mr. Wilson himself should 
all understand that Mr. Wilson has no authority whatever 
to speak for the American people at this time. His leader- 
ship has just been emphatically repudiated by them. 
The newly elected Congress comes , far nearer than Mr. 
Wilson to having a right to speak the purposes of the 
American people at this moment. Mr. Wilson and his 
Fourteen Points and his four supplementary points and his 
five complementary points and all his utterances every 
which way have ceased to have any shadow of right 
to be accepted as expressive of the will of the American 
people. 

He is President of the United States. He is a part of 
the treaty-making power; but he is only part. If he acts 
in good faith to the American people, he will not claim 
on the other side of the water any representative capacity 

160 



WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

in himself to speak for the American people. He will say- 
frankly that his personal leadership has been repudiated 
and that he now has merely the divided official leadership 
which he shares with the Senate. / 

. . . America played in the closing months of war a 
gallant part, but not in any way the leading part, and she 
played this part only by acting in strictest agreement 
with our allies and under the joint high command. She 
should take precisely the same attitude at the Peace Con- 
ference. We have lost in this war about 236,000 men 
killed and wounded. England and France have lost about 
7,000,000. Italy and Belgium and the other Allies have 
doubtless lost 3,000,000 more. Of the terrible sacrifice 
which has enabled the Allies to win the victory, America 
has contributed just about 2 per cent. 

It is our business to act with our allies and to show an 
undivided front with them against any move of our late 
enemies. I am no Utopian. I understand entirely that 
there can be shifting alliances. 

But in the present war we have won only by standing 
shoulder to shoulder with our allies and presenting an 
undivided front to the enemy. It is our business to show 
the same loyalty and good faith at the Peace Conference. 
Let it be clearly understood that the American people 
absolutely stand behind France, England, Italy, Belgium, 
and the other Allies at the Peace Conference, just as she has 
stood with them during the last eighteen months of the 
war. Let every difference of opinion be settled among the 
Allies themselves, and then let them impose their com- 
mon will on the nations responsible for the hideous disaster 
which has almost wrecked mankind. 

What Mr. Roosevelt did, in words as plain 
as his pen could marshal, was to inform the 
Allies that they were at liberty to disregard the 
President, the League of Nations, and the Four- 
teen Points, and that the Republican party 
would stand as a unit for as hard a peace^ as 
Foch chose to dictate. Had he signed a power 

161 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

of attorney he could not have given any freer 
hand to Lloyd George and Clemenceau. 

The President was at all times aware of the 
risks that he ran, the dangers that he faced. The 
joy of the armistice, that caught every one in its 
tidal sweep, was, perhaps, his last experience 
with unalloyed happiness. I was on the George 
Washington as his guest, my errand to France 
having no other object than to wind up the 
affairs of the Committee on Public Information. 
The legends that associated my work with 
censorship and repression made demobilization 
the part of wisdom, and the same reasons forced 
the conclusion that any personal connection with 
the Peace Conference would be distorted and 
attacked. One evening, as we walked the deck, 
I spoke to the President of the tremendous help 
that his addresses had been to us in our work — 
of the wholehearted response of the peoples of 
earth, their gladness in his words, the joyful 
liberation of their thought. The one incom- 
pleteness was in connection with the Central 
Powers. In a score of ways we had reached the 
public opinion of these countries with the mes- 
sage of America, but what seemed necessary 
now was to put the story of American idealism 
before them in all of its splendid fullness. New 
governments were forming in Poland, Czecho- 
slovakia, and Jugoslavia and not only was it 
important to impress them with the true nobility 
of our purpose, but there were also the sullen- 
nesses of Germany, Austria, and Hungary that 
might be wiped out by an explicit relation of the 
facts. 

162 






WHY THE PRESIDENT WENT TO PARIS 

The President stood silent for quite a while, and 
when he turned to me at last his face was as 
bleak as the gray stretch of sunless water. 

"I4^~i&-a ^re7it thing thnf 37011 hn- w p Hnru^ /' he 
said»- **hiit T am wondering if you have jiui -un^ 
c onsciou_s b r spun a n e t f o r me from which t 4^eFe~pi 
is-oa-£LScape. It is to America that the whole \ 
world turns to-day, not only with its wrongs, 
but with its hopes and grievances. The hungry 
expect us to feed them, the roofless look to us 
for shelter, the sick of heart and body depend 
upon us for cure. All of these expectations 
have in them the quality of terrible urgency. 
There must be no delay. It has been so always. 
People will endure their tyrants for years, but 
they tear their deliverers to pieces if a millennium 
is not created immediately. Yet you know, and 
I know, that these ancient wrongs, these present 
unhappinesses, are not to be remedied in a day 
or with a wave of the hand. What I seem to 
see — ^with all my heart I hope that I am wron 
is a tragedy of disappointment." 
12 



X 

PARIS AND PROCRASTINATION 

BREST brimmed with flower-bearing children 
— it seemed as if the jardins des enfants of 
France had been poured into the streets of the 
town — and on the way to Paris the train passed 
through a veritable lane of women and little 
ones crying: ^^ Vive VAmerique! Vive le Presi- 
dent!^^ They crowded the stations, they lined 
the fields, and their shrill pipings were the last 
thing we heard at night, the first thing in the 
early dawn. Paris was splendid! All that was 
fine and brave and generous in the nation poured 
out like wine in those first days. 

Dear and heart-warming as it was, however, 
the President had not come to France for his 
gratification, but on a stern errand that brooked 
no delay. He asked at once about the Con- 
ference, and there began the series of delays 
that were carefully and skilfully planned to 
give time for the subsidence of popular emotion. 
It was explained that Lloyd George was fighting 
for his political life in the English elections, 
that Orlando and the Italians were not ready, 
that France could not bear to let him commence 
serious conversations until he had received her 
full tribute — and seen the devastated area; and 
there were also the plans that had been arranged 

164 



PARIS AND PROCRASTINATION 

for his visits to England, Italy, and Belgium. 
The statesmen knew well that had the Con- 
ference convened upon the President's arrival, 
it would have been suicide to resist a single 
Wilson proposition, for the peoples of the Allied 
countries were still in the grip of a great joy, a 
great gratitude, and a great faith. In equal 
degree these wise old men knew that it would be 
only a matter of weeks before these very people, 
going back to their ruined homes and desolate 
lives, would be thinking in terms of victory and 
indemnities. 

The President was bitterly disappointed at the 
delay, but, since there was no other alternative, 
he accepted the situation with good grace. 
His one successful resistance was to the repeated 
effort to have him visit the devastated area. 
It was obviously the French desire to stir him 
to a passion of resentment against the Germans, 
and, keen as were Mr. Wilson's sympathies, he 
did not mean to let himself be swayed from 
high purposes by any process of harrowing. At 
every point, and at every moment, there was 
this organized campaign on the part of the 
politicians to center thought on France's wrongs 
and to keep discussion away from the League 
of Nations and the Fourteen Points. All the 
while the Paris papers filled their columns with 
despatches from the United States, telling of 
the President's repudiation by the Repubhcan 
Senate majority, and informing Europe that 
the American people were behind France, not 
Wilson. 

In England an even more disturbing mani- 

i6s 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

festation of intent was witnessed. To win the 
election of December i8th Lloyd George was 
forswearing himself and his pledges with a 
shamelessness that was equaled only by that 
of the English people in forcing and applauding 
such a course. Speaking on November nth, 
the day that the armistice was signed, Lloyd 
George made this declaration of faith: 

They [the conditions of peace] must lead to a settlement 
which will be fundamentally just. No settlement that 
contravenes the principles of eternal justice will be a per- 
manent one. The peace of 1871 imposed by Germany 
on France outraged all the principles of justice and fair 
play. Let us be warned by that example. We must not 
allow any sense of revenge, any spirit of greed, any grasping 
desire, to override the fundamental principles of righteous- 
ness. Vigorous attempts will be made to hector and bully 
the government in an endeavor to make them depart from 
the strict principles of right, and to satisfy some base, 
sordid, squalid idea of vengeance and of avarice. We must 
relentlessly set our faces against that. . . . 

A large number of small nations have been reborn in 
Europe, and these will require a League of Nations to 
protect them against the covetousness of ambitious and 
grasping neighbors. In my judgment a League of Nations 
is absolutely essential to permanent peace. We shall 
go to the Peace Conference to guarantee that a League of 
Nations is a reality. 

On December nth, at a time when the Presi- 
dent of the United States was on the sea, coming 
to Europe to receive the fulfilment of the 
pledges made him, Lloyd George was begging 
votes on a platform of "Hang the Kaiser" and 
"Make Germany pay the whole cost of the war.** 
As he said in Paris, grinning as though it were 
all a joke, "Heaven only knows what I would 

166 



PARIS AND PROCRASTINATION 

have had to promise them if the campaign had 
lasted a week longer." 

England cheered the President even more 
enthusiastically than Paris — the same England 
that had voted to repudiate his program just 
one week before — and even as the ovation rang 
loudest Clemenceau was informing the Cham- 
ber of Deputies that the old-fashioned system 
of alliances must be maintained. Fairly shouting 
his defiance to the League of Nations, he de- 
clared on December 31st that "there is an old 
system which appears condemned to-day, and 
to which I do not fear to say that I remain 
faithful at this moment. Countries have or- 
ganized the defense of their frontiers with the 
necessary elements and the balance of power.'* 

The Italian situation also had its disquieting 
features. While in Paris on December 19th the 
King of Italy and his advisers had sounded out 
the President on the subject of annexing Fiume 
and a large section of the Dalmatian coast. 
This plan did not have the full-hearted support 
of either the King or Orlando, and as yet had 
not been mentioned to the Italian people, but 
was entirely the jingoistic conception of the 
reactionary Sonnino. The President did not 
attempt to conceal either his sense of shock or 
his unalterable opposition. He made it clear 
that he stood for every Italian claim that had 
been openly advanced, and would support the 
return to Italy of the Trentino, Triest, and 
part of Istria, but that he saw nothing but in- 
justice and new war in the original and startling 
proposition to seize the only possible seaport of 

167 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the Jugoslavs. The Italians seemed to ac- 
quiesce, but the surrender was more apparent 
than real. 

On the journey to Rome Ambassador Page 
boarded the President's train at Modane, and in 
his party was a messenger from Mr. Hearley, 
the Commissioner for Italy of the Committee 
on Public Information. He told me that the 
program for the President, as arranged by Or- 
lando and Sonnino, had excited wide-spread 
discontent by its exclusion of the people them- 
selves. I looked over the sheet brought by the 
ambassador and saw for myself that the plan of 
entertainment considered only the royal and 
official circles. Mr. Hearley's suggestion was 
that the President had an empty hour after his 
luncheon with the Queen Mother, and that as he 
drove back to the Quirinal the citizens of Rome 
were eager to have him stop at the Piazza Vene- 
zia for a meeting that would be the people's own. 
I took the matter up with the President at once, 
and after consultation with the ambassador, 
who saw no impropriety in the arrangement, I 
was given permission to telegraph the Presi- 
dent's consent to Mr. Hearley. 

At twelve o'clock of the day Admiral Grayson 
brought word that the "official entertainers" had 
entered a very vigorous protest against the plan 
and that the President thought it wise to cancel 
the engagement. I explained to the admiral 
that this was impossible, as thousands were al- 
ready gathered at the Piazza Venezia and 
nothing but misunderstanding and bitter dis- 
appointment could result from the announcement 

i68 



PARIS AND PROCRASTINATION 

that the President had changed his mind at the 
last moment. The invitation had been extended 
and accepted in good faith, and, as the pledge of 
the President had been given, surely the Italian 
government would not wish to put him in a 
position of extreme embarrassment. The mes- 
sage came back that the President would keep 
the appointment, but that the hour would have 
to be four o'clock instead of two-thirty o'clock. 
Orlando and Sonnino, working quickly, had 
arranged for a number of interviews that were 
not on the program. 

As early as one o'clock the great square facing 
the Umberto Memorial was filled with men, 
women, and children, and by two there must 
have been 50,000 people packed in the Piazza 
and the near-by streets. Four o'clock came, and 
with it a message from the President to tell the 
waiting throngs that he was being delayed for 
half an hour. Alpini, Arditi, and plain citizens 
ran through the crowd like mad, shouting the 
news. Despite the fact that all had been stand- 
ing for four hours, a great and happy cheer went 
up when it was learned that the President would 
come eventually. Time dragged on, and it was 
not until six o'clock that we heard the trumpets 
and saw the outriders that marked the approach 
of the King and the President. Every one 
figured, as a matter of course, that a stop would 
be made, but the procession swept by at full 
speed on its way to the Chamber of Deputies. 
A groan went up from the gathered thousands, 
and with the Latin emotionalism that one finds 
only in Italy women cried and men threw their 

169 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

hats upon the ground and tore wildly at their 
hair. 

It was not until the next day that I learned 
the full story of the wretched afternoon. Un- 
able to change the President's plans, Orlando and 
Sonnino went to work deliberately to block them. 
Interview after interview was arranged in haste 
and thrust forward with peremptoriness, and 
when the President, out of all patience, was 
about to put on his coat to go out the King 
himself was produced for the purpose of an offi- 
cial conference on matters of state. At last 
there was the understanding that the car would 
be stopped at the Piazza Venezia, but this was 
not done. It was told to me later, by a sym- 
pathetic member of the court circle, that the 
reason for it all was Sonnino's fear that the 
President, speaking extemporaneously to the 
people, might bring up the Fiume proposal. 
This would have been fatal to the plans of the 
politicians, for they had not yet commenced 
their propaganda campaign, and all Italy was 
thinking in terms of peace and justice, not in 
terms of annexation and renewed hostilities. 
Undoubtedly the President guessed at this, for 
in his speech before the Chamber of Deputies 
he declared that the full independence of the 
Balkan States must not be interfered with by 
any dream of annexation. 

The planned interruptions of the afternoon, 
reaching a climax in the deceit that carried him 
by the Piazza Venezia without a halt, stirred 
the President to a deep and bitter resentment, 
and the last act of the drama added to his dis- 

170 



PARIS AND PROCRASTINATION 

trust of Sonnino. A statement of the afFair, 
cautious enough to guard against offense and 
yet sufficiently explicit to absolve the President 
in the minds of the people, was killed by the 
Italian censorship. In its stead the official 
press carried the bland announcement that the 
President had never had any intention of speak- 
ing to the people at the Piazza Venezia, the false 
report being the work of trouble-makers. 

Throughout the stay in Rome it was amus- 
ingly apparent that only the King and the peo- 
ple beheved in the President and his ideals. 
The Cabinet, dominated by Sonnino, epitomized 
reaction. As a matter of fact, the King himself 
was the only man in the ItaHan government 
who seemed to have any faith in democracy at 
all. A sturdy little figure, homely, but very 
appealing, his simplicity went home to the 
heart of the President on the occasion of their 
first meeting in Paris. 

"Good Lord!" the King groaned as he looked 
around him at the splendors of the Hotel Murat, 
"we can't give you anything like this at the 
Quirinal." 

The President reached Paris on the morning 
of January 7th, and was dismayed to learn that 
Lloyd George had not yet arrived, and that a 
visit to Belgium was in process of arrangement. 
As firmly as might be, the President served 
notice that touring was at an end and that he 
must insist upon an instant convocation of the 
Peace Conference. His very evident indigna- 
tion forced an end to the deliberate dawdUng, 
and on January 12th the first meeting of the 

171 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Supreme Council was held. A primary task 
was the amendment of the armistice terms, 
and, this done, the President drove straight at 
the fundamental point, inviting a test of strength 
on the question of the League of Nations. He 
won. When the discussion ended announcement 
was made that the League of Nations would 
be "at the head of the order of the day at the 
first full meeting of the Peace Conference." 

On January 15th, however, he suffered a 
reverse, the Council deciding against open 
sessions. 

M. Tardieu in the course of a recent article . 
attempts to prove that Clemenceau was at all y 
times an advocate of publicity. Nothing is 
farther from the truth. The President and 
Lloyd George made the fight for the admission 
of the press, and were voted down by the union 
of France, Italy, and Japan. It was only under 
the pressure of an aroused public opinion that 
Clemenceau and his two supporters yielded to 
the extent of permitting the full sessions of the 
Conference to be open. Frankly, the French 
<yovernment*s attitude toward publicity was a 
source of irritation throughout the entire Con- 
ference. Before leaving Washington the Presi- 
dent had announced the suspension of American 
censorship of every kind, and had requested 
both France and England to pursue a similar 
course, stating his belief that the peoples of the 
world were entitled to the fullest possible in- 
formation with respect to the Peace Treaty. 
Both governments agreed, but on arrival in 
Paris it was discovered that the British were 

172 



PARIS AND PROCRASTINATION 

living up to their pledge only in part, while the 
French were disregarding it entirely. The Presi- 
dent's protests were specific and repeated, but 
only England heeded them. 

The cleverness of the French was never more 
apparent than in their concealment of responsi- 
bility for the unfortunate condition, for it was 
even the case that they persuaded many to 
believe that President Wilson himself was the 
source of repression. So intelligent an observer 
as Dr. E. J. Dillon was deceived, and has writ- 
ten as follows in his Inside Story of the Peace 
Conference: 

It was characteristic of the system that two American 
citizens were employed to read the cablegrams arriving 
from the United States to French newspapers. The 
object was the suppression of such messages as tended to 
throw doubt on the useful belief that the people of the 
great American Republic were solid behind their Presi- 
dent, ready to approve his decisions and acts, and that his 
cherished Covenant, sure of ratification, would serve as a 
safe guaranty to all the states which the application of his 
various principles might leave strategically exposed. In 
this way many interesting items of intelligence from the 
United States were kept out of the newspapers, while 
others were mutilated and almost all were delayed. Pro- 
tests were unavailing. Nor was it until several months 
were gone by that the French public became aware of the 
existence of a strong current of American opinion which 
favored a critical attitude toward Mr. Wilson's policy and 
justified misgivings as to the finality of his decisions. 
It was a sorry expedient and an unsuccessful one. 

Nothing could be farther from the facts. 
There was no such censorship, and never at any 
time were "two American citizens" employed 
for any such purpose. The proof of it may be 

^7Z 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

found in the Paris press of December and Janu- 
ary. Every paper, on its front page, carried 
daily despatches from Washington informing 
the French people that Wilson was not the spokes- 
man of the United States, but only a repu- 
diated politician. On December i8th Sena- 
tor Knox made a bitter attack upon the League 
of Nations, declaring that the whole question 
should wait "until the Allies had imposed their 
terms," and on December 20th Senator Lodge 
delivered a lengthy address along the same lines. 
Both of these speeches were "played up" in the 
French and English press, and other regular 
features were the assaults of Roosevelt. Also 
on December 21st Senator Lodge made a speech 
in favor of Clemenceau's appeal for "secret 
sessions," and this was reprinted with keen 
delight. As early as January ist such papers as 
UEcho de Paris and the London Post were 
carrying editorials stating that the attitude 
of the Republican Senate majority "placed full 
power in the hands of the Allies," but that this 
power must be used wisely, as any open humilia- 
tion of Mr. Wilson might be resented. 

Mr. Ray Stannard Baker, attached to the 
American Peace Commission at the time, has 
given proof of the extent to which the campaign, 
was organized and directed: 

A secret document showing how the French press — 
a large part of which is notoriously controlled by the 
government — was being marshaled against the influence 
of the President and in support of French interests actually 
came into the possession of one of the American commis- 
sioners. It was in the form of official suggestions of 

174 



PARIS AND PROCRASTINATION 

policy of French newspaper editors, and it contained three 
items : 

First, they were advised to emphasize the opposition to 
Mr. Wilson in America, by giving all the news possible 
regarding the speeches of Republican Senators and other 
American critics. 

Second, to emphasize the disorder and anarchy in Russia, 
thereby stimulating the movement toward Allied military 
intervention. 

Third, to publish articles showing the ability of Germany 
to pay a large indemnity. 

At all times there was plain evidence of this 
secret relation between the French government 
and the French press. The President, induced 
to regard private discussions as sacredly con- 
fidential, kept his pledge to the point of an 
absurd reticence. No American newspaper man 
could win a word from him with reference to 
any controversial matter until decisions were 
reached and duly announced. On the other 
hand, the French contentions, the French points 
of view, were communicated secretly but regu- 
larly to the French press, a pleasant practice 
that continued until the President served warn- 
ing that he would not submit to it a day longer. 

Repudiated and assailed by the RepubHcan 
majority, every attack being reprinted with 
joyousness by a French and English press, meet- 
ing at every turn the stubborn antagonism of 
cynical statesmen bent upon a policy of delay 
until they were ready to stab, and faced by the 
patent fact that the "power of the people" was 
confined to the presentation of flowers and city 
keys, it was only the driving force of the Presi- 
dent's faith that compelled the meeting of the 

175 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Supreme Council of January 12th and secured 
the selection of the League of Nations as a first 
order of business. And with this faith as his 
sole support he turned now to the first meeting 
of the Peace Conference, where the real battle 
was to be fought. 



XI 



"the big four" 



No council-chamber ever witnessed the meet- 
ing of four more widely dissimilar person- 
alities than those that faced in Paris for the pur- 
pose of restoring peace and order to a distracted, 
war-torn world. In character, temperament, 
training, culture, ideas, and ideals the President, 
Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Sonnino stood 
out as studies in contrast, and these differences 
were rendered more acute by a conflict in aims 
that was as instant as it was fundamental. Eng- 
land, France, and Italy were gathered as victors 
to impose termiS upon a defeated enemy, their 
whole intent embittered by the wretchedness 
and desolation at their backs. The settlement 
with Germany accomplished, and accomplished 
according to the Mosaic formuldy they were willing 
to talk of world peace and international concert, 
but not until then. Only the mind of the 
President was unclouded by any passion of anger 
or self-interest. 

The Allied point of view found a vigorous and 
complete expression in Clemenceau, better known 
as "The Tiger." Mr. Keynes, more conrerned 
with striking phrase than true characterization, 
may call Clemenceau "dry in soul and empty 

177 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

of hope,"^ but no one else gained any such impres- 
sion. The whole soul of the man flamed with 
a passion for France, his hopes for France were 
insistent demands, and to the support of an 
aggressive nationalism he brought the strength 
of a bull and the direct charge of a rhinoceros. 
As a youth he had writhed under the Prussian 
entry into Paris; from 1871 to 1914 he had seen 
his country exist as a nation by the sufferance of 
Berlin, and it was the memory of these un- 
happy, humiliating years that dominated him at 
every stage of the Conference. Reparation was 
not a determining consideration with him by 
any means. What he wanted, what France de- 
manded, was security. Better a prostrate Ger- 
many, too weak to pay, than a Germany strong 
enough to pay, and therefore srong enough to 
repeat the assaults of 1870 and 1914. It was 
this fear, burned into French consciousness by 
a half-century of dread, that Clemenceau felt 
and expressed. When he presented claims that 
violated the principles of settlement it was 
in no spirit of mean rapacity, but in obedience 
to a very natural instinct of self-preservation. 
France was sick of living under the Prussian 
sword. The simplicity of Clemenceau's problem 
added immeasurably to the innate strength of 
the man. He stood for France, for France 
alone, and the devastated area was a background 
that not only robbed the stand of sordidness, 
but gave it a certain heroic quality. Squat and 
powerful, his^ long arms reaching well below his 
knees, his old face gnarled into the shape of a 

' J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 

178 



"THE BIG FOUR" 

bludgeon, he was an embodiment of the primi- 
tive, the savage, as he stood over the bleeding, 
prostrate form of France and bellowed his 
challenges. 

The President, on the other hand, was cast 
in no such picturesque role. He fought for 
principles, always less dramatic than the personal, 
and neither could he point behind him to a war- 
ravaged land. He had to find his foothold 
among seeming abstractions, while Clemenceau 
was privileged to fix his feet on the solid gran- 
ite of an uncompromising demand. Clemenceau 
could talk concretely, while the President was 
forced to talk generally. He could appear the 
man of action, while the President, in the nature 
of things, had to look the man of words. 

Orlando, the Italian delegate, was a plump, 
cheery little man, blessed with some approach to 
democratic vision as well as a very real ability, 
but at his back, controlling and directing, was 
always Baron Sidney Sonnino, the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs. Son of an Italian Jew and an 
English mother, Sonnino had the age and 
cynicism of Clemenceau without a single one of 
the Frenchman's generous passions. Hair white 
as snow, his age-stooped shoulders and hawk 
face joined to give him the appearance of a bird 
of prey. An imperialist in every inch of his old 
body, believing impHcitly in secret diplomacy 
and the balance of power, Sonnino foresaw the 
triumphs of the Allies at the time Italy entered 
the war, and dreamed a dream of divided spoils 
that would restore the ancient glories of his 
country. The claim to Fiume, cutting off the 
16 179 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Slavic hinterland from any Adriatic port, was 
his conception entirely, and at every point in 
the Conference he stood like iron against "Uto- 
pian theories" and "emotional experiments.'* 

Working by himself, Orlando would have been 
of inestimable value to his country, but Sonnino 
was a millstone that dragged him down. Taci- 
turn to the point of suUenness, offensive to the 
point of insolence, and holding himself aloof 
at all times, Sonnino was the most disliked man 
in Paris. His constant pull and haul with 
Orlando also had the eiFect of giving a weird 
effect of contrariety to every Italian position. 
What was said or done one day would be unsaid 
and undone the next, and as a result even the 
best friends of Italy were always in doubt as 
to how she wished to be served. 

As for Lloyd George, there is no parallel for 
him in American politics, or in world politics, 
for that matter. So completely does the quick- 
silver quality of the man defy terse characteriza- 
tion that it is, perhaps, the safest course to let 
his political record define him. It was by rea- 
son of his savage assault upon England's estab- 
lished order and the English ruling class that 
Lloyd George first rose to power. The House 
of Lords was anathema to him, and not even 
William D. Haywood ever inveighed so elo- 
quently against the tyrannies and oppressions 
of Special Privilege and Vested Interest. I was 
in England in 1910 at the time when he was 
driving through the Parliament act that stripped 
the Lords of their veto power, and every true 
Briton able to support a white collar and a top- 

180 



"THE BIG FOUR" 

hat cried out against the Welshman as an assas- 
sin who meant to "murder them in their beds," 
a form of death that, for some reason, seems to 
hold a peculiar horror for Englishmen. 

By his passionate championship of labor and 
his strenuous advocacy of home rule for Ire- 
land he was the idol of these groups, and Asquith, 
forced to recognize his power in the Liberal 
party, had to make a place for him in the Cabinet. 
Growing in radicalism, in order to effect a dis- 
tinction between himself and Mr. Asquith's 
more conservative leadership, there is no doubt 
that Lloyd George was reaching out for the reins 
of power, but the sudden explosion of war com- 
pelled a change in his plans. His patriotism 
may not be questioned, but even the most ardent 
patriotism can be made to take on the color 
of one's desires. Out of his alliance with North- 
clifFe came the bitter, unceasing attack upon 
Asquith that eventually enabled Lloyd George 
to aid in the overthrow of his party leader with 
every appearance of sincere purpose. He failed, 
however, to carry the bulk of the Liberal party 
with him in his desertion, and this compelled 
an alliance with his ancient enemies, the Tories. 
No matter what the country, reactionaries are 
ever hard bargainers and skilful traders, and 
while Lloyd George rose to be Premier, the price 
that he paid was the recantation of many of his 
labor principles, complete abandonment of home 
rule, and the placing of such Tories as Bonar 
Law, Carson, Milner, Curzon, and Balfour at 
his right hand in seats of power. 

From that day to this his career has been 

i8i 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

marked by one patent opportunism after the 
other. Even while basing his December cam- 
paign upon assertions that Germany would be 
squeezed to the last pfennig and that the Kaiser 
would be tried and hanged in the Tower of Lon- 
don, he was solemnly assuring the liberal thought 
of England that he would stand for the League 
of Nations and a "peace of justice." In Paris 
he fairly bubbled with enthusiasm over the 
"rights of small peoples" and at the same time 
ordered fresh troops to Ireland, Egypt, and 
India to crush the rebellions of unhappy peoples. 
One moment with Clemenceau and Sonnino, 
the next a fine supporter of the President, he 
swung like a pendulum between the compulsions 
of his own decent principles and the necessity 
of placating his Tory masters. To quote the 
words of Doctor Dillon, an Englishman and 
a former admirer of the Premier, "his conduct 
appeared to careful observers to be traced mainly 
by outside influences, and as these were various 
and changing, the result was a zigzag. One 
day he would lay down a certain proposition 
as a dogma not to be modified, and before the 
week was out he would advance the contrary 
proposition and maintain that with equal warmth 
and doubtless with equal conviction. Guided by 
no sound knowledge and devoid of the ballast 
of principle, he was tossed and driven hither 
and thither like a wreck on the ocean." 

A curious compound of drama, oratory, craft, 
cynicism, vision, demagoguery, and idealism, the 
perfection of the blend made Lloyd George at 
once a hope and a despair. Only the brilliant 

182 



"THE BIG FOUR" 

audacity of the man, his humor, bubbling 
gaiety, and charm, enabled him to carry off 
situations that would have shamed another. 

At no time was the President deceived as to 
the character or intent of his colleagues. One of 
his most valuable possessions is an uncanny gift 
of appraisement, and from the first he assessed 
each man fairly and accurately. The impas- 
sioned nationalism of Clemenceau, the medie- 
valism of Sonnino, and the "grasshopper mind*' 
of Lloyd George were simple of understanding 
after the first few meetings, and with every per- 
sonal obstacle clear in his mind, he set to work 
on the accomplishment of the purposes that 
had brought him to Paris. Mr. Keynes, with 
glib authoritativeness, may declare "that the 
President had thought out nothing; when it came 
to practice his thoughts were nebulous and 
incomplete," but the facts dispute this impudent 
assertion at every turn. What the President 
carried to the Peace Conference was a definite, 
concrete plan for a League of Nations, not as an 
afterthought, but as an integral part of the 
treaty, its very foundation, in fact, for he saw 
plainly that the one hope of a just peace, a 
world peace, was in the quick creation of an 
independent, impartial machinery of adjustment 
and adjudication. 

In driving to his goal, however, he was arbitra- 
rily limited both by internal and external re- 
straints. Every warm impulse of his nature 
stirred to the pathos of the desolated homesteads 
of France, Belgium, Serbia, and Italy, and 
even while he opposed many of the demands of 

183 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

their spokesmen as calculated to continue the 
very evils that had worked the wretchedness, 
his sympath3rwas at all times with them. Com- 
radeship is an instinct with him, and he could not 
have forgotten, had he wished to do so, that 
America had fought side by side with these 
peoples. This very real understanding of their 
wrongs, this sense of blood brotherhood, made 
him patient of chicane, unfalteringly tolerant of 
deceit and selfishness, and robbed him of weapons 
that it would otherwise have been in his power 
to use. 

There is also this to bear in mind. When the 
President, in behalf of America, served notice 
upon the world that the Conference must present 
a "peace of justice," he did not mean a "peace 
of parole" by any means. Much of the mis- 
understanding that muddles public thought 
to-day is due to this confusion of justice with 
such words as mercy, leniency, escape, con- 
donement, etc. The President suffered from 
no such confusion. What Germany had at- 
tempted was an intolerable thing, and it was 
right that she should be made to pay for the 
attempt. The wrong that Germany had sought 
to do the world and to civilization was the 
greatest wrong in all history, and there must be 
no weak purpose with regard to punishment. 
There was to be no thought of crushing the 
German people, but what had to be burned into 
the consciousness of the German people was 
a due sense of responsibility for the horrors 
wrought by their mad ruler. Thus the President 
spoke and thus he thought. 

184 



"THE BIG FOUR" 

Another difficulty in the path of the President 
was the American situation. Each day saw 
the French and EngHsh press filled with quota- 
tions from the speeches of Republican Senators 
and Republican politicians in which both the 
President and his policies were repudiated and a 
"peace of victory'' urged. Particular emphasis / 
was placed upon Mr. Hays's declaration that 
"America will uphold her allies in whatever 
reparation they may exact for the frightful 
outrages inflicted upon them by the accursed 
Huns." 

That no sympathy went out to the President 
is either a compliment to the strength of the 
man or else a bitter commentary upon the fair 
play of America, for his position was pitiable 
and desperate. Instead of support from the 
people whose declared ideals he championed, 
there came only the steady shrilling of the Senate, 
vile in its abuse, treacherous in its desertion 
of war aims, enthusiastic in its encouragement 
of every attack upon the President and his 
principles. Facing him were men who jeered 
him in their souls and whose minds were set 
on his defeat. The obvious course was forbidden 
to him by his conscience. If, for instance, he 
appealed to the peoples of Europe against their 
rulers, what then? Granting that the iron cen* 
sorship of France, England, and Italy would have 
permitted his message to be printed, does any 
one imagine that they would have presented it 
fairly.? Nothing is more certain than that a 
great cry of "pro-Germanism" would have been 
raised at once, and that the wild angers aroused 

185 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

would have been deaf to argument or reason. 
America itself, still hot with battle anger, would 
have joined in the clamor no less than the Allied 
countries, and the world would have surged 
again to its former hates. 

For him to have returned to the United States, 
as a protest, would have been not merely deser- 
tion, but actual betrayal. Left to themselves, 
with every restraint removed, the Allies would 
have harked back to the Congress of Vienna 
for their inspiration, giving themselves entirely 
over to their fears, hates, and rapacities, and 
deciding upon a peace treaty at the last that 
would have doomed the world to resume life 
under the old menaces of catastrophe. Instead 
of a League of Nations, with its great world 
court for the peaceful settlement of interna- 
tional disputes, only a return to the evil balance 
of power; instead of universal disarmament, 
freeing the back of humanity from a crushing 
burden, more millions into navies and even 
larger standing armies; instead of permanent 
peace, only the certainty of new and more terrible 
wars. There was but one decision possible to be 
made in honor, and that was to fight it out. 
This decision the President made, and he brought 
to its support a courage that never wavered, a 
faith that beat down opportunism, a resourceful- 
ness that bewildered his opponents, and a char- 
acter that compelled their reluctant respect. 

Mr. Keynes finds it in his conscience to write 
that the President's mind was "slow and un- 
adaptable," that he was somewhat "dull'* and 
often "bewildered"; that his hands, "while 

i86 



"THE BIG FOUR" 

capable and fairly strong, were wanting in sensi- 
tiveness and finesse," that he lacked "the 
dominating intellectual equipment necessary to 
cope with subtle and dangerous spellbinders,*' 
and, crowning fault of all, "he was not only 
insensitive to his surroundings in the external 
sense, he was not sensitive to his environment 
at all. What chance could such a man have 
against Mr. Lloyd George's unerring, almost 
medium-like sensibility to every one immediately 
round him.^ To see the British Prime Minister 
watching the company, with six or seven senses 
not available to ordinary men, judging character, 
motive, and subconscious impulse, perceiving 
what each was thinking and even what each was 
going to say next, and compounding with tele- 
pathic instinct the argument or appeal best 
suited to the vanity, weakness, or self-interest 
of his immediate auditor, was to realize that the 
poor President would be playing blind man's 
buff in that party." 

This expression of British malice, so peculiarly 
revelational of the intense dislike for America 
and Americans that dominates the average 
Englishman, is best answered by the record. 
The President met Clemenceau, Lloyd George, 
and Sonnino on their own ground, fought them 
with their own weapons, and zvon. Before many 
days had passed his Tory associates were hysteri- 
cal in their resentment against Lloyd George 
for his weakness, contemptuously referring to 
him as "Wilson's puppy dog," while the reaction- 
ary French newspapers and the jingoistic group 
in the Chamber of Deputies were equally bitter 

187 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

against Clemenceau for permitting ''the auto- 
cratic Wilson" to bully him into the surrender 
of French rights. The same hoarse screaming 
came from Italy and Japan. 

The League of Nations, urged only by the 
President and resisted by every Premier, was 
not only adopted, but adopted as a primary and 
integral part of the Peace Treaty, the very key- 
stone of the arch. 

The German colonies, confidently looked upon 
by England as loot, and the weak nations of the 
world, about to be divided as part of the spoils, 
were all withdrawn from conquest and annexa- 
tion and placed under the supervision and pro- 
tection of the League of Nations. 

The French claim to the sovereignty of the 
Saar Basin and the Rhine Valley was disputed 
successfully, likewise the Italian claim to the 
Jugoslavic seaport of Fiume, and Japan, instead 
of holding Shantung as a prize of war, was forced 
to accept the role of an economic concessionnaire. 

The German indemnity, instead of being fixed 
at ^40,000,000,000, was set at about ^14,000,- 
000,000, and placed under the direction of a 
Reparations Commission that has the power 
to accommodate payments to the needs and 
abilities of the German people. 

Mr. Keynes may feel that the "old Presby- 
terian" was "bamboozled," but no crow of self- 
congratulation has yet escaped Lloyd George, 
Clemenceau, or Sonnino, and the bitterness of 
the imperialistic press of France, England, and 
Italy continues unsoothed. 



XII 

THE OPENING BATTLE 

THE sources of confusion and antagonism 
with respect to the treaty narrow down, 
under analysis, to two fundamental miscon- 
ceptions: the first as to the power and purpose 
of the Peace Conference itself, and the second 
as to its emphasis and procedure. There is a 
somewhat general opinion, carefully cultivated, 
that the Paris gathering had the scope and 
authorities of a world court, and that it blundered 
criminally and fatally in failing to realize that 
its problems were not political or territorial, but 
financial and economic. 

The Peace Conference, as a matter of fact, 
was in no sense a concert of nations, but merely 
the assemblage of a group of victorious belliger- 
ents for the sole business of determining matters 
that concerned themselves and themselves alone. 
They were joined only to re-establish their own 
lives, to heal their own wounds, for any attempt 
to order the affairs of the whole world, in the 
absence of every neutral nation, would have been 
unwarranted and resentable. The single con- 
cern of the Conference was the settlement of the 
war and questions arising out of the war. All 
else was automatically excluded. 

It was the case, to be sure, that definite bases 

189 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

of settlement had been declared, and that many 
solemn pledges bound the gathering to certain 
great principles in connection with the estab- 
lishment of a new world order with permanent 
peace as its object. The application of these 
principles to concrete injustices, however, was 
neither the right nor province of the Conference. 
The freedom of the seas, self-determination, 
disarmament, arbitration — these and all other 
related hopes were not in the authority of the 
Conference, except as it chose to approve them, 
but waited necessarily on the formation of an 
inclusive, independent, and impartial body such 
as was forecast by the proposed League of 
Nations. Ireland, Egypt, and Morocco had no 
more reason to be considered than Porto Rico, 
Cuba, or the Philippines, for they were not Ger- 
man possessions nor were they at stake in the 
war. Their wrongs, and they were undoubted, 
were for the adjudication of a world court, 
not for the wrangle of a group of belligerents. 
^ For America to have attempted to give England 
orders as to Ireland would have been as futile 
and absurd as for England to have issued a 
mandate to America with respect to the Philip- 
pines. The one result of such impudences 
would have been an exaggeration of chaos, the 
loss of the one hope that lighted the despairs of 
oppressed peoples. 

Refusing to recognize the obviousness of the 
situation, Irish, Egyptian, and Hindu delega- 
tions hurleJthemselves upon Paris and the 
President, demanding instant adjustment of 
their wrongs and refusing to admit that any- 

190 



THE OPENING BATTLE 

thing else possessed larger importance. But for 
the tragedy of it, there would have been laughter 
in the confident assumption that the President 
had only to "sign on the dotted line" in order to 
give freedom to Ireland, India, and Egypt. 
Their insistences rejected, the various revolu- 
tionary groups joined hands with the reactionary 
groups, and soon the world witnessed the amaz- 
ing spectacle of imperialist and rebel, Tory and 
Bolshevik, all joined in enthusiastic unity for the 
defeat of the League of Nations. 

The second contention — that the Conference 
should have refused to consider political and 
territorial problems until a program of financial 
and economic reconstruction had been worked 
out — is the talk of ignorant specialists when it is 
not the malignance of partizans. From the be- 
ginning of time, the strongest force in human 
nature has been the passion for liberty. Not 
cold nor hunger nor wretchedness nor death has 
ever had power to subordinate the soul of man- 
kind to the material considerations of life. The 
words ot Wilson and the defeat of Germany 
joined to give bright promise of a new order. 
These forces released the aspirations of centuries, 
and the Old World seethed in a spiritual tumult 
that had no parallel save in the exaltations of the 
Crusades. It is true enough that through the 
President's windows came the cries of a suffering 
world, but in no sense was it the wail of a nursing 
child. It was the cry of men and women sick 
of tyranny, and it came from their hearts and 
souls, not from their bellies. Bread was not 
their clamor, but freedom. The thing that 

191 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

stirred them was not present needs, but ancient 
wrongs. 

For four hundred years the indomitable peo- 
ples of Czechoslovakia had held to their national 
hopes in spite of every cruelty of repression; 
through bloody, terrible centuries the Poles 
had dreamed their dream of nationality, and the 
Jugoslavic peoples, unbowed by the Austro- 
Hungarian yoke, were also standing erect at 
last, pressing their faces against the stars. It 
is reasonable to assume that such as these would 
have put their passions to one side while be- 
spectacled economists worked out the problems 
of customs, exchange, fuel, and transport? 
For close to half a century France had suffered 
the memories of 1871, and the self-respect of the 
nation was bound up in the restoration of Alsace- 
Lorraine. Italy looked to the Irredenta as a 
mother to her recovered child, and this spirit of 
nationalism also compelled an early considera- 
tion of the Adriatic tangle. Is it fair, or even 
intelligent, to imagine that France and Italy 
would have been content to think of Alsace- 
Lorraine and the Irredenta in terms of coal and 
iron and railroads.? 

It is true that finance and economics were 
fundamental problems, but it is equally true 
that the Peace Conference did not meet in an 
emotional vacuum. Nothing is more unfair, 
more mad, than the present smug theory that 
the human equation could have been cold- 
bloodedly put to one side while economists pawed 
over charts and tables. The President saw the 
situation in all of its pathetic hopelessness, and 

192 



THE OPENING BATTLE 

even as he drove forward with the League of 
Nations, so did he insist upon instant considera- 
tion of the land titles of Europe. The League 
was his safeguard against injustice, a guaranty 
for the future, while a quick settlement of 
European territorial claims, in his opinion, would 
abate passion and stabilize mental processes, 
permitting economic questions to be answered 
sanely. 

This order of business, however, was not in 
accordance with the plans of the various Pre- 
miers. While the Allies stood as a unit against 
the League of Nations and the Fourteen Points, 
each nation had its own secret ideas with regard 
to the territorial readjustment of Europe. In 
addition to the proposed annexation of the 
Rhine Valley and the Saar Basin, France was 
also taking a very feverish interest in the affairs 
of the new Polish state, as well as giving much 
thought and time to the cultivation of close 
arrangements with Czechoslovakia. Italy was 
rounding out her claims to Fiume and Dalmatia, 
and considering new measures to check the 
aspirations of the Jugoslavs. England, in full 
control of the seas, could afford to look upon 
Germany as a customer, rather than as a rival, 
but was not yet willing to show her hand fully. 
What complicated the situation still further 
was the disclosure of secret treaties, made 
prior to the American entry Into the war, to be 
sure, but never even hinted at until President V 
Wilson heard of them in Paris and demanded 
to see them. Among the documents that he 
forced to be laid on the board were the Treaty 

193 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

of London, by which Italy was induced to declare 
war; the agreement with Rumania in August, 
1916; the various agreements in respect to 
Asia Minor, and the agreements of 19 17 between 
France and Russia relative to the Saar Basin 
and the left bank of the Rhine. 

The President, as a matter of course, an- 
nounced that he would refuse to be bound by 
these secret and concealed arrangements, but of 
all those assembled in Paris, only Venizelos 
supported his stand. In a public statement, 
the Greek statesman said that "A League of 
Nations will do away with these treaties. As 
a matter of fact, they were made before the real 
purpose and significance of this was developed 
and before America came into the conflict. 
They no longer apply. At Versailles we all 
agreed to the fourteen peace terms of President 
Wilson. That agreement abrogates previous 
secret treaties which are not in harmony with 
it." 

It is a matter of intense regret that Venizelos 
could not have played a larger part in the Peace 
Conference, for he had qualities of greatness 
that dwarfed those of Lloyd George, Clemenceau, 
and Sonnino. With his broad forehead, deep-set 
thinker's eyes, and general suggestion of the 
university, Venizelos gave little hint of the rev- 
olutionist, yet it was his courage that drove 
Prince George from Crete and sent a traitor 
king into exile and disgrace. Venizelos sees as 
far and sees as clear as any man in the world 
to-day. As intense a nationalist as ever lived, 
he holds his land and his people to ideals of 

194 



THE OPENING BATTLE 

justice and refuses to let them be stained by a 
single selfishness. 

The Allies were not ready to face the issue, 
partly out of a fear of the President's strength, 
but principally because their own plans were 
still in disarray. What seemed safe, therefore, 
as a measure for gaining further time was the 
disposition of the German colonies, and this 
question was put to the fore. On its face, it 
looked simple, for the peoples involved were 
weak and helpless, and the transaction seemed no 
more difficult than a book transfer from Germany 
to the nations then in physical possession. All 
had been arranged in advance and only signa- 
tures were required. Japan was to hold the 
province of Shantung in fee simple and was to 
take over the Marshall and Caroline Islands; 
Australia and New Zealand were to divide the 
Southern Pacific possessions; South Africa was 
to annex German territory; and the French were 
to receive the Cameroons and Togoland. 

The President, when faced with these pro- 
p6sals, pointed to the fifth of the Fourteen 
Points, which said that in colonial claims "the 
interests of the populations concerned must 
have equal weight with the equitable claims of 
the government whose title is to be determined." 
The Allies agreed enthusiastically to this prin- 
ciple, but insisted that its application be delayed 
until after the German colonies had been dis- 
tributed. President Wilson stood like iron in 
support of Point Five, insisting that the German 
colonies should not be handed out like prize 
packages, but must be placed under the pro- 
14 195 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

tection and guidance of the League of Nations. 
Mr. Hughes, the AustraUan Premier, was put 
forward by England to make the open fight 
against the President, and his bitter attack 
reached the point of insult and abuse. The 
French and British press, directly inspired, 
joined in a hue and cry that continued until the 
President informed Lloyd George and Clemen- 
ceau that he would reveal the entire discussion 
unless the guerrilla attack came to an end. 
, Neither of the Premiers dared to stand before the 
^ world as cold-blooded annexationists, and in the 
end the President scored a complete victory. 
Article 22 of the Covenant accepts the mandatory 
principle in its entirety. The French press gave 
vent to its indignation in rather full degree, but 
it was the English newspapers that voiced a 
frenzy of reproach. Lloyd George was accused 
of having cut the Empire into bits, attacked for 
betraying the British tradition, and denounced 
as a weakling who dared not stand out against 
the autocracies of Wilson. 

This decision was reached on January 29th. 
On the 25th another success had been won by 
the President, the first plenary session of the 
Peace Conference adopting the project to estab- 
lish a League of Nations as an integral part of 
the Peace Treaty, and appointing a committee to 
work out the details. The President was named 
as chairman, and his associates were Lord Robert 
Cecil, General Smuts, Leon Bourgeois, and 
Orlando. No lie was more assiduously circulated 
at the time, or is more generally believed to-day, 
than that the President's stubborn support of 

196 



THE OPENING BATTLE 

the League of Nations was responsible for the 
delay in framing the full Treaty of Peace. As 
a matter of fact, the two engagements of January 
1 8th and January 25th were as brief as they were 
decisive, while the actual formulation of the 
Covenant itself was done at night after the 
President had given his day to the Peace Con- 
ference. This incessant strain, forced upon 
him by his sense of urgency, was what sapped 
his strength, for he was compelled to depart 
from the White House regimen that kept him 
in health. 

Much is made of the fact that when the Presi- 
dent reached Paris he did not have a typewritten 
constitution and by-laws in his pocket for im- 
mediate production after the style of a constable 
about to foreclose a chattel mortgage. Where 
the President had the plan of the League was 
in his mind, his heart, and his soul. The matter 
was not one for thought, but one for agreement. 
Every fundamental of the League's constitution 
had been set down in his addresses time and 
again. Its terms, as he saw them and as he had 
stated them, were these: an end to the secret 
treaties of secret diplomacy, disarmament, a 
general council to sit continuously, arbitration 
and the economic boycott as a substitute for 
war, an end to private traffic in the munitions 
of war, the establishment of a permanent court 
of international justice, the protection of demo- 
cratic nations brought into existence as the re- 
sult of the Great War, and a system of manda- 
tories for the upbuilding of weak peoples hitherto 
handed about from power to power Uke so many 

197 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

pawns. It was not phraseology that mattered — 
any law clerk could write it out when agreed 
upon — but principles. In the discussions that 
took place in the Hotel Murat, night after night, 
Orlando was reserved, Bourgeois timid, Cecil 
hesitant, and only Smuts, with the ardor and 
vision of the colonial, had the courage to take 
his stand side by side with the President, aiding 
him at all times to drive forward. 
/^ All the while another question of tremendous 
\ import was pressing its demand for immediate 
attention. This was the Russian situation. 
Throughout the war the President, unable to 
come to any positive agreement with France, 
Great Britain, and Japan, and faced by the 
utter impossibility of taking any single-handed 
action, had more or less permitted the Russian 
chaos to "take care of itself." This policy 
could be persisted in no longer with safety, and 
none realized it more keenly than the President. 
Japan was taking advantage of every opportunity 
to increase her armed force in Siberia, and French 
opinion, concerned entirely with France's huge 
loans to Russia, was solidly in favor of over- 
throwing the Bolshevik dynasty, although some- 
k^what uncertain as to the means. In the middle 
of January Lloyd George ventured a hint that 
it might be well to recognize the Lenin govern- 
ment as a first step in the direction of stabiliza- 
tion, but the outcry that rose instantly from 
the conservatives of England and France sent 
him scuttling to cover. The Republican leaders 
in the Senate — the selfsame group that later 
listened with such keen sympathy to Mr. Bul- 

198 



THE OPENING BATTLE 

litt's glowing picture of Bolshevism — ^joined in 
the thunder of denunciation. 

The next move in the confused game was the 
proposal to hold a conference on Prince's Island 
to which representatives of every Russian group 
would be invited, the hope being that the Rus- 
sians themselves might come to some agreement, 
or, at least, simplify the situation so that the 
Peace Conference could take a fair and definite 
position. The idea was that of the President, 
but it had the approval of England and France. 
Lenin accepted the invitation with alacrity, 
but the anti-Bolshevist groups declined with 
fury and particularity. How far the French 
encouraged this refusal will always be a matter 
of conjecture, but there can be no doubt as to 
Clemenceau's change from sullen acquiescence to 
aggressive opposition. The Republican party 
in the United States, and the conservative forces 
of France and England, joined in bitter protest 
against any "parley with assassins," and Clemen- 
ceau was able to support his attitude by reference 
to this opposition. Deserted by their own peo- 
ple, the President and Lloyd George were unable 
to go farther. Even as they debated, however, 
the situation changed, forcing an action of the 
very appearance that both men hated and 
desired to avoid. Japan, waiting with curled 
lip while the talk went on, announced that she 
was sending 70,000 troops into Siberia for the 
purpose of "protecting Japanese rights.'* It 
was plain to be seen that Japan could not be 
permitted to go into Russia alone. As quickly 
as might be, England sent a force into northern 

199 



/ 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Russia, French troops went to southern Russia, 
and American troops traveled to guard the 
Siberian Railway. It looked like a policy of 
aggression, but, in reality, it was a policy of 
protection. This, however, could not be ex- 
plained, for the motives of Japan could not be 
impugned, the honor of Japan could not be 
questioned. 

The Russian chaos exists to-day as a direct 
result of the failure of the Prinkipo conference, 
and it will continue to exist until democratic 
nations are sufficiently in love with their practice 
to make the admission that Russia is entitled 
to have the kind of government that the people 
want or seem to want. Whether one likes or 
dislikes the rule of the proletariat is not the 
question. It is what Russia likes, or, at least, 
what Russia endures, that counts. 



XIII 

THE STAB IN THE BACK 

THE early days of February, 1919, were 
bright with promise. The European press, 
seeming to accept the President's leadership as 
unshakable, was more amiable in its tone, the 
bitterness bred by the decision as to the German 
colonies had abated, Fiume and the Saar Basin 
had taken discreet places in the background 
with other deferred questions, and the voice of 
French and English and Itahan Hberalism was 
heard again. On February 14th the President 
reported the first draft of the League con- 
stitution — a draft that expressed his principles 
without change — and it was confirmed amid 
acclaim. It was at this moment, unfortunately, 
that the President was compelled to return to 
the United States to sign certain bills, and for the 
information of the Senate he carried with him 
the Covenant as agreed upon by the Allies. 

We come now to a singularly shameful chapter 
in American history. At the time of the Presi- 
dent's decision to go to Paris the chief point 
of attack by the Republican Senators was that 
such a "desertion of duty" would delay the 
work of government and hold back the entire 
program of reconstruction. Yet when the Presi- 
dent returned for the business of consideration 

201 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

and signature, the same Republican Senators 
united in a filibuster that permitted Congress to 
expire without the passage of a single appropria- 
tion bill. This exhibition of sheer malignance, 
entailing an ultimate of confusion and disaster, 
was not only approved by the Republican press, 
but actually applauded. 

The draft of the League constitution was 
denounced even before its contents were known 
or explained. The bare fact that the document 
had proved acceptable to the British Empire 
aroused the instant antagonism of the "pro- 
fessional" Irish-Americans, the "professional" 
German-Americans, the "professional" Italian- 
Americans, and all those others whose pohtical 
fortunes depended upon the persistence and 
accentuation of racial prejudices. Where one 
hyphen was scourged the year before a score 
of hyphens was now encouraged and approved. 
In Washington the President arranged a con- 
ference with the Senators and Representatives 
in charge of foreign relations, and laid the 
Covenant frankly before them for purposes of 
discussion and criti^asm. The attitude of the 
Republican Senators was one of sullenness and 
suspicion. Senator Lodge refusing to state his 
objections or to make a single recommendation. 
Others, however, pointed out that no express 
recognition was given to the Monroe Doctrine; 
that it was not expressly provided that the 
League should have no authority to act or 
express a judgment on matters of domestic policy; 
that the right to withdraw from the League was 
not expressly recognized; and that the constita- 

202 



THE STAB IN THE BACK 

tional right of the Congress to determine all 
questions of peace and war was not sufficiently 
safeguarded. 

The President, in answer, gave it as his opinion 
that these points were already covered satis- 
factorily in the Covenant, but that he would be 
glad to make the language more explicit, and 
entered a promise to this effect. Mr. Root and 
Mr. Taft were also furnished with copies of the 
Covenant and asked for their views and criticism, 
and upon receipt of them the President again 
gave assurance that every proposed change and 
clarification would be made upon his return to 
Paris. On March 4th, immediately following 
these conferences, and the day before the sailing 
of the President, Senator Lodge rose in his place 
and led his Republican colleagues in a bold and 
open attack upon the League of Nations and 
the war aims of America. The following account 
of the proceedings is taken from the Congressional 
Record: 

Mr. Lodge: Mr. President, I desire to take only a mo- 
ment of the time of the Senate. I wish to offer the resolu- 
tion which I hold in my hand, a very brief one: 

Whereas under the Constitution it is a function of the 
Senate to advise and consent to, or dissent from, the ratifica- 
tion of any treaty of the United States, and no such treaty 
can become operative without the consent of the Senate 
expressed by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the 
Senators present; and 

Whereas owing to the victory of the arms of the United 
States and of the nations with whom it is associated, a 
Peace Conference was convened and is now in session at 
Paris for the purpose of settling the terms of peace; and 

Whereas a committee of the Conference has proposed a 
constitution for the League of Nations and the proposal 

203 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

is now before the Peace Conference for its consideration; 
Now, therefore, be it 

Resolved by the Senate of the United States in the dis- 
charge of its constitutional duty of advice in regard to 
treaties, That it is the sense of the Senate that while it 
is their sincere desire that the nations of the world should 
unite to promote peace and general disarmament, the 
constitution of the League of Nations in the form now 
proposed to the Peace Conference should not be accepted 
by the United States; and be it 

Resolved further. That it is the sense of the Senate that 
the negotiations on the part of the United States should 
immediately be directed to the utmost expedition of the 
urgent business of negotiating peace terms with Germany 
satisfactory to the United States and the nations with 
whom the United States is associated in the war against 
the German government, and that the proposal for a 
League of Nations to insure the permanent peace of the 
world should be then taken up for careful and serious 
consideration. 

I ask unanimous consent for the present consideration 
of this resolution. 

Mr. Swanson: I object to the introduction of the reso- 
lution. 

Mr. Lodge: Objection being made, of course I recognize 
the objection. I merely wish to add, by way of explanation, 
the following: 

The undersigned Senators of the United States, Mem- 
bers and Members-elect of the Sixty-sixth Congress, hereby 
declare that, if they had had the opportunity, they would 
have voted for the foregoing resolution: 

Henry Cabot Lodge James E. Watson 

Philander C. Knox Thomas Sterling 

Lawrence Y. Sherman J. S. Frelinghuysen 

Harry S. New W. G. Harding 

George H. Moses Frederick Hale 

J. W. Wadsworth, Jr. WiUiam E. Borah 

Bert M. Fernald Walter E. Edge 

Albert B. Cummins Reed Smoot 

F. E. Warren Asle J. Gronna 

204 



THE STAB IN THE BACK 

Frank B. Brandegee Lawrence C. Phipps 

William M. Calder Selden P. Spencer 

Henry W. Keyes Hiram W. Johnson 

Boies Penrose Charles E. Townsend 

Carroll S. Page William P. Dillingham 

George P. McLean L L. Lenroot 

Joseph Irwin France Miles Poindexter 

Medill McCormick Howard Sutherland 

Charles Curtis Truman H. Newberry 
L. Heisler Ball 

I ought to say in justice to three or four Senators who 
are absent at great distances from the city that we were 
not able to reach them; but we expect to hear from them 
to-morrow, and if, as we expect, their answers are favorable 
their names will be added to the list. _^ 




A full report of this action was cabled to 
Europe, as a matter of course, and when the 
President arrived in Paris on March 14th, ten 
days later, he was quick to learn of the disastrous 
consequences. The Allies, eagerly accepting the 
orders of the Republican majority, had lost 
no time in repudiating the President and the 
solemn agreements that they had entered into 
with him. The League of Nations was now 
discarded and the plan adopted for a preKminary 
peace with Germany was based upon a frank 
division of the spoils, the reduction of Germany 
to a slave state, and the formation of a military 
alliance by the Allies for the purpose of guarantee- 
ing the gains. Not only this, but an Allied 
army was to march at once to Russia to put down 
the Bolshevists and the treaty itself was to be 
administered by the Allied high command, en- 
forcing its orders by an army of occupation. 
The United States, as a rare favor, was to be per- 

205 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

mitted to pay the cost of the Russian expedition 
and such other incidental expenses as might 
arise in connection with the mihtary dictatorship 
that was to rule Europe. 

While primarily the plan of Foch and the other 
generals, it had the approval of statesmen, even 
those who were assumed to represent the liberal 
thought of England being neck-deep in the con- 
spiracy. Not a single party to the cabal had 
any doubt as to its success. Was it not the case 
that the Republican Senators, now in the ma- 
jority, spoke for America rather than the Presi- 
dent? Had the Senators not stated formally 
that they did not want the League of Nations, 
and was the Republican party itself not on 
record with the belief that the Allies must have 
the right to impose peace terms of their own 
choosing, and that these terms should show 
no mercy to the "accursed Hun"? I was in 
Paris throughout this period, and while regret 
at the "passing of the President" was heard in 
some quarters, the general feeling was one of great 
satisfaction. There would now be an end to 
this silly gabble about "ideals" and "justice." 
The President allowed himself just twenty-four 
hours in which to grasp the plot in all of its 
details, and then he acted, ordering the issuance 
of this statement : 

The President said today that the decision made at the 

Peace Conference in its Plenary Session, January 25, 1919, 

I to the effect that the establishment of a League of Nations 

/ should be made an integral part of the Treaty of Peace, 

' is of final force and that there is no basis whatever for the 

reports that a change in this decision was contemplated. 

206 



THE STAB IN THE BACK 

This action of the President brought upon his 
head the fiercest denunciation that had yet been 
launched, and when he met with Clemenceau 
and Lloyd George on March i8th their attitude 
was one of truculence. In this crisis the Presi- 
dent used no threats of any kind, for, as a matter 
of fact, there were none that he could use. 
Deserted by the peoples of the world, all of them 
now committed to a "hurry up the peace" 
policy, betrayed by the Congress of his own 
country, and faced by a group of men able at 
last to voice their resentment against principles 
in which they had never believed, there was no 
threat in his power that would not have recoiled 
to his defeat and humiliation. Nor did he stoop 
to appeals or persuasion. He simply talked 
sense. Clearly, logically, convincingly, he ripped 
the plan to pieces, showing that it was not only 
unjust, but unworkable, and that instead of lead- 
ing to firm ground it was committing the Allies 
themselves to a quicksand from which there 
was no escape. If they cast the Fourteen Points 
to one side, where would it leave them? France 
would straightway seize the Saar Basin and the 
Rhine Valley. Was that agreeable to England 
and Italy? No! Italy would proceed at once 
to make the Adriatic an "Italian lake," cutting 
off Czechoslovakia, Austria, Jugoslavia, and 
Hungary from their outlet to the sea. Putting 
aside the certainty of armed resistance by the 
Slavs, would France and England like that? 
No! Poland, craftily directed by France, would 
lay claim to East Prussia and all the territory 
from the Baltic to the Black Sea? Even ignor- 

207 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

ing the wars of freedom that would be waged by 
Russians, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, and Ukrain- 
ians, would England and Italy like that? No! 
England would take over Persia, Mesopotamia, 
the Hedjaz, Egypt, and the German islands in 
the southern Pacific? Would France and Italy 
like that? No! 

Did they not have sense enough to see that 
the thing they planned was no more than the 
manufacture of new wars; that if it were put 
into effect it would not be a year before England, 
France, and Italy would not only be facing 
armed revolt from within, but that each nation 
would be in arms against the other, searching 
eagerly for allies, and willing to make any agree- 
ment, even with their former foes, that would 
enable them to defeat their former friends? 
They thought themselves intelligent, yet could 
not discern that their greedy imperialism would 
restore not only the reputation of the Central 
Powers, but also their military strength? It 
stood plain that they recognized the need of a 
machinery to administer the terms of the Peace 
Treaty. Were they fools enough to dream that 
this administration could be furnished by the 
Allied high command, backed by armies drawn 
from the youth of America, England, Italy, 
Japan, and the other associated nations? Did 
they not have the vision to perceive that the 
peoples of these nations were sick of militarism, 
and that they would not stand for a military 
dictatorship any more than would the people 
of Germany ? Were they so blind as not to see 
that the League of Nations provided the very 

208 



THE STAB IN THE BACK 

machinery — and a civil machinery — that was 
needed? That the whole Peace Treaty would 
fall to pieces without a fair, independent, civil 
body to live on through the years that would 
be necessary to carry out the treaty's provisions? 
What madness possessed them that they ima- 
gined for one moment that the United States 
would furnish the money for a Russian invasion 
or for the maintenance of a military dictatorship 
in Germany? 

Under this merciless rain of logic Lloyd George v 
curled up and Clemenceau writhed. There was 
no answer to it, either from the gay insouciance 
of the one or the insolence of the other. On 
March 26th it was announced, grudgingly 
enough, that there would be a League of Nations 
as an integral part of the Peace Treaty. It was 
now the task of the President to take up the 
changes that had been suggested by his Re- 
publican enemies, and this was the straw that 
broke his back. There was not a single suggested 
change that had honesty back of it. The League 
was an association of sovereigns, and as a matter 
of course any sovereign possessed the right of 
withdrawal. The League, as an international 
advisory body, could not possibly deal with 
domestic questions under any construction of 
the Covenant. No power of Congress was 
abridged, and necessarily Congress would have 
to act before war could be declared or a single 
soldier sent out of the country. Instead of 
recognizing the Monroe Doctrine as an American 
policy, the League legitimized it as a world 
policy. The President, however, was bound to 

209 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

propose that these plain propositions be put in 
kindergarten language for the satisfaction of 
his enemies, and it was this proposal that gave 
Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and their associates 
a new chance for resistance. 

All of the suggested changes were made with- 
out great demur until the question of the Monroe 
Doctrine was reached, and then French and 
English bitterness broke all restraints. Why- 
were they expected to make every concession 
to American prejudice when the President would 
make none to European traditions? They had 
gone to the length of accepting the doctrine of 
Monroe for the whole of the earth, but now, 
because American pride demanded it, they must 
make public confession of America's right to 
give orders. No! A thousand times no! It 
was high time for the President to give a 
little consideration to French and English and 
Italian prejudices — time for him to realize 
that the lives of these governments were at 
stake as well as his own, and that Lloyd 
George, Clemenceau, and Sonnino had parlia- 
ments to deal with that were just as unrea- 
sonable as the Congress of the United States. 
If the President asked he must be willing to 
give. 

As if at a given signal, France renewed her 
claim for the Rhine Valley and the Saar Basin, 
Italy clamored anew for Fiume and the Dalma- 
tian coast, and Japan, breaking a long silence, 
rushed to the fore with her demand for Shantung 
in fee simple and the right of her nationals to 
full equality in the United States. Lloyd George, 

2IO 



THE STAB IN THE BACK 

threatened on one side by the British Labor 
party and menaced on the other by his Tory 
government, shifted painfully from one foot to 
the other, wondering which way to jump. 
Worn out in body by the terrific strain, the 
President fell ill and took to his bed, but his 
Indomitable will would not let him quit the 
struggle, and the Council of Four continued its 
meetings, holding them in a room adjoining the 
President*s sick-room. Instead of sympathy for 
his illness, there was only desperate intent to 
take advantage of it. On April 7th the President 
struggled to his feet and faced the Council in 
what every one recognized as a final test of 
strength. There must be an end to this dreary, 
interminable business of making agreements only 
to break them. An agreement must be reached 
once for all. If a peace of justice, he would 
remain; if a peace of greed, then he would leave. 
He had been second to none in recognizing the 
wrongs of the Allies, the state of mind of their 
peoples, and he stood as firmly as any for a 
treaty that would bring guilt home to the Ger- 
mans, but he could not, and would not, agree 
to the repudiation of every war aim or to arrange- 
ments that would leave the world worse off 
than before. The George Washington was in 
Brooklyn. By wireless the President ordered 
it to come to Brest at once. 

The gesture was conclusive as far as England 
and France were concerned. Lloyd George 
swung over instantly to the President's side, and 
on the following day Le Te7nps carried this 
significant item: 
15 211 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Contrary to the assertions spread by the German press 
and taken up by other foreign newspapers, we believe that 
the government has no annexationist pretensions, openly 
or under cover, in regard to any territory inhabited by a 
German population. This remark applies peculiarly to 
the regions comprised between the frontier of 1871 and the 
frontier of 18 14. 

Again, in the lock of wills, the President was 
^ the victor, and the French and English press, 
exhausted by now, could only gasp their con- 
demnation of Clemenceau and Lloyd George. 



XIV 

THE ZERO HOUR 

THE week that followed was one of such prog- 
ress that on April 14th the Germans were 
notified that they should present themselves at 
Versailles on the 25th. Suddenly a new storm 
broke. Angered beyond measure at the seeming 
inability of their delegates to withstand the 
force of the President, the House of Commons 
and the Chamber of Deputies served notice 
that they would not rest satisfied with less than 
a "hard peace." The French radicals, of whom 
so much had been expected, mustered 166 votes 
against 334. From Italy came an imperative 
demand for Fiume that aroused Orlando to a 
frenzy of action. Day after day the President 
battled along against the onslaught, for while 
both Lloyd George and Clemenceau were op- 
posed to the Italian claim, neither one had the 
courage to come out in the open. The President 
yielded to the point of agreeing to place Fiume 
under genuine international control, but beyond 
this he would not go. On April 23 d, seeing no 
end to the interminable discussion, he issued the 
famous statement in which he defined and de- 
fended the rights of the Jugoslavs to a seaport. 
Straightway Orlando left the Conference and 
set out for Rome, declaring that Italy would 

213 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

neither sign the treaty nor join the League of 
Nations. The President's statement had been 
read and approved by Lloyd George and Cle- 
menceau, but when the storm burst both hunted 
cover and permitted newspaper announcement 
to be made that neither of them had indorsed 
the President's position. 

It was at this moment that Belgium chose for 
an expression of the anger that had been slowly 
forming through the weeks. From the time it 
became apparent that it was not in the power 
of Germany to pay in full measure for the dam- 
age inflicted the Belgians commenced to worry 
for fear that France and England would appro- 
priate the bulk of the reparations moneys, forcing 
the "little fellows" to rest content with what 
was left. Notice was now served on the Presi- 
dent that unless the Belgian idea of justice 
was met in all completeness, Belgium would 
follow the example of Italy, withdrawing from 
the Conference and refusing to become a signa- 
tory to the treaty. 

Into this troubled situation the Japanese pro- 
jected themselves with instancy and vigor. 
Bluntly, stubbornly, they insisted upon the 
validation of their claim to German rights in 
Shantung. As far as legal title was concerned, 
the Japanese contention was impregnable against 
attack. Shantung had been wrested from the 
Germans by force of arms, and the transfer of 
German rights to Japan had been pledged by 
France and England, and approved by China as 
well. The President, however, looked beyond 
the law and treaties to the justice of the case, 

214 



THE ZERO HOUR 

and stood for the return of Shantung to the 
Chinese as a first step in restoring the territorial 
integrity of China. The Japanese were bitter 
in their rejection of this theory. On April nth 
the Peace Conference had denied them the racial 
equality that should have been given to them. 
Wounded in pride, deeply resentful of what 
seemed to be a bold drawing of the color line, 
Japan insisted upon her rights in Shantung 
not only as a matter of honor, but as a demand 
of national self-respect. They pointed to the 
treaty in which France and England agreed to 
support the Shantung claim. Was this now to 
be regarded as "a scrap of paper"? Lloyd 
George and Clemenceau answered that they still 
felt themselves bound by their written agreement, 
whereupon both Premiers walked out of the 
room, leaving the President to make the fight 
alone. Words were not wasted. If the Japanese 
claim was not adjusted in fairness, Japan would 
withdraw from the Conference and refuse to 
sign the Peace Treaty. 

The fate of the world now hung upon the 
decision of the President, a man deserted by his 
associates, repudiated by the parliamentary 
body of his country, and unsupported by the 
peoples from whose idealism so much had been 
expected. Italy had already withdrawn from 
the Conference, Belgium was making daily 
threats of withdrawal, and now came the Japan- 
ese with a similar ultimatum. It was not 
merely the disruption of the Conference that 
was to be feared; it was the world chaos that 
impended. In Hungary the administration of 

215 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Karolyi had been overthrown and Bela Kuh 
and his Bolshevists were in command; Austria 
trembled on the edge of anarchy; Bavaria had 
adopted a Bolshevist form of government; ^the 
Poles and the Czechs were at swords* points; 
red-flag parades were being held in Paris, and 
wherever one looked there was hatred and fight- 
ing. To delay the peace meant the turning 
over of civilization to the forces of disorder. 
To permit the disruption of the Conference 
might give courage to Germany to enter the 
field again. Above all, it would lose the League 
of Nations! 

Was this great fundamental, after all, not 
more important than a detail or two? Was it 
right to hazard the peace and security of the 
world by any stubborn demand for immediate 
perfection? None knew better than the Presi- 
dent that if the Conference dissolved in anger 
and confusion nothing but another world war 
would restore the League of Nations to the 
realm of practical politics. None knew better 
than the President that the constitution of the 
League contained every power of remedy for 
the evils of the treaty, and that these powers 
would be exercised wisely and effectively in 
the day when the rule of reason should prevail 
again. These were the considerations that 
impelled the President to certain measures of 
compromise. Facing the Japanese anew, he 
told them that he would support their claim 
to the German rights in Shantung if Japan, in 
return, would agree to recognize the sovereignty 
of China and rest content with the mere role 

216 



THE ZERO HOUR 

of an economic concessionnaire. Upon this basis 
the settlement was made on April 29th. 

The Italians had no such case in the matter of 
Fiume, for even the Treaty of London specifi- 
cally excluded this seaport. As a consequence 
the President stood firm on this point. He 
refused to change his position with respect to 
the Polish demand for East Prussia and Dantzig, 
insisting that the needs of Poland would be served 
by the internationalization of the ancient city. 
Neither was he shaken as to the continuance of 
German sovereignty in the Rhine Valley and 
over the Saar Basin, but in the last phase of this 
debate he did make an important concession to 
Clemenceau. This was the tripartite alliance 
that pledged England and the United States to 
come to the aid of France in event of any new 
attack by Germany. Even had conditions been 
vastly different, it is difficult to see how any 
other action could have been taken in fairness or 
generosity. 

Clemenceau had been forced to surrender on 
virtually every point in the French demand.^ 
Punitive indemnities, the annexation of the 
Rhine Valley and the Saar Basin, the League of 
Nations — all of these were losing battles for 
"The Tiger.'* What he asked at the last was 
nothing more than reassurance, a gesture to 
cftlm the hysteria of fear that shook his people. 
The Americans and the British were returning 
to their unravaged lands, leaving a desolated 
France to live under the menace of an uncrushed 
Germany. What stood in the way of such a 
pledge? Had Mr. Roosevelt and the entire 

217 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Republican party not attacked the President 
savagely for his neutrality, urging France's 
many claims upon America's generosity? Was 
it not the case that the people and press of the 
United States were a unit in admitting America's 
obligations to the land of Lafayette and Rocham- 
beau? Why, then, the hesitancy? It was true, 
to be sure, that the League of Nations would 
furnish the desired security, but the Republican 
majority in the Senate had served notice that 
it would not ratify the Covenant. What was 
France to do in the mean time? Also was it 
not a fact that the President had insisted upon 
reopening a closed matter for the sake of exempt- 
ing the Monroe Doctrine from the jurisdiction 
of the League of Nations? What was this but 
an obvious submission to the prejudices of his 
people? Would he now deny Clemenceau's ap- 
peal to have equal respect shown for the fears 
of France? It was an argument that could not 
be rejected by a just or generous man. 

With the various disputes adjusted, com- 
promised, or dismissed, the treaty took shape 
rapidly, and on May 7th, fourth anniversary of 
the Lusitania disaster, the German delegation 
filed into the historic chamber at Versailles 
where Bismarck had once stood in power and 
arrogance, shouting the savage terms that were 
assumed to work the annihilation of France. 
The personnel of the delegation was unfortunate, 
for instead of men expressive of a new and 
democratic order, the head was Count Brock- 
dorfF-Rantzau, a pillar of Hohenzollernism, and 
at his side grouped prominent figures of the old 

218 



THE ZERO HOUR 

regime. Their attitude was truculent to the 
point of insolence, and from the first it was 
more their disposition to argue dead issues than 
to deal intelligently with the presented problems. 
Without attempt to play upon the passions of the 
past, Clemenceau gave the text of the treaty to 
Brockdorff-Rantzau, and informed him that an 
answer would be required by May 21st. Oral 
discussion was barred, and this decision is the 
sole ground for one of the most popular and 
widely copied attacks upon the President: 

Thus it was that Clemenceau brought to success what had 
seemed to be, a few months before, the extraordinary and 
impossible proposal that the Germans should not be heard. 
If only the President had not been so conscientious, if 
only he had not concealed from himself what he had been 
doing, even at the last moment he was in a position to have 
recovered lost ground and to have achieved some very 
considerable successes. But the President was set. His 
arms and legs had been spliced by the surgeons to a certain 
posture, and they must be broken again befpre they could 
be altered. To his horror, Mr. Lloyd George, desiring 
at the last moment all the moderation he dared, discovered 
that he could not in five days persuade the President of 
error in what it had taken five months to prove to him to 
be just and right. After all, it was harder to de-bam- 
boozle this old Presbyterian than it had been to bamboozle 
him; for the former involved his belief in and respect for 
himself. Thus in the last act the President stood for 
stubbornness and a refusal of conciliations.^ 

To charge that the Germans were not heard 
is a well-nigh incredible distortion of the facts. 
Oral discussion was barred for the very sound 
and sensible reason that meetings would have 
degenerated into unseemly wrangles, angers 

* J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, p. 54. 

219 



N 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

putting argument to one side, not to mention 
the obvious effect of daily recrimination upon 
the populations of the various countries. On 
the other hand, written arguments and counter- 
proposals were invited, and the Germans took 
full advantage of this privilege. All in all, a 
full score of objections and appeals were filed, 
and these notes, with the AlHed replies, were 
given instant publication so that the world 
might follow the negotiations. On May loth 
the Germans discussed at length the clauses 
relating to the repatriation of prisoners; on 
May 1 2th, the question of reparations; on May 
13th, the proposed territorial changes; on May 
i6th, the Saar Basin; on May 22d, the interna- 
tional labor legislation;, and on May 23d the 
report of the German Economic Commission 
was published, together with the Allied reply. 
On May 20th an extension of time was asked 
and granted, and on May 29th the complete 
German counter-proposals were handed in and 
straightway given to the press for the informa- 
tion of all peoples. No fairer method of hearing 

)^ could have been devised. Instead of the hot 
give-and-take of oral debate, confined neces- 
sarily to a few principal figures, the Germans 

' were allowed time and opportunity for thought, 
study, and consultation in order that their replies 
might be full and authoritative, expressing the 
deliberate opinions of their experts. 

At no time did Lloyd George attempt to 
persuade the President of error in this matter. 
It is true that he called the whole British Cabinet 

to Paris on June 1st for the purpose of consider- 

220 



THE ZERO HOUR 

ing the advisability of modifying the peace 
terms to Germany, but this is what every other 
government was doing, and what the President 
himself insisted upon. The Peace Treaty and 
the German reply were before the world. As a 
matter of common sense, it behooved the Peace 
conferees to see that every German point 
received full consideration, for the peoples of 
earth were watching and waiting. From May 
29th to June 1 6th the Council worked on the 
German counter-proposals, weighing every word, 
analyzing every claim, for it was the moral 
judgment of mankind that would pass upon the 
result of their labors. 

It is to be wished that the two documents — 
the German of May 29th and the Allied reply 
of June i6th — could be printed in every language 
and placed in every school and library, for they 
furnish in themselves a complete and dramatic 
exposition of the whole Peace Treaty, permitting 
the formation of an inteUigent and independent 
opinion with respect to the confused question 
of justice or injustice. The German note was 
passionate without being strong, and even so 
ardent an admirer as Mr. Keynes admits regret- 
fully that it "did not succeed in exposing in 
burning and prophetic words" the insincerity of 
the transaction. The Allied note, on the con- 
trary, had strength without passion, and even as 
it made many and important concessions and 
modifications, so was it at pains to explain every 
rejection. 

The principal German contentions were these: 
that the peace was one of violence, not justice; 

221 



/ 

THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

that Germany did not commence the war; and 
that the Allies had stated repeatedly that they 
were not making war on the German people; it 
should be taken into consideration that the 
people were now in power, and that the new 
government should not be held responsible for 
the " faults " of the former government. To these 
assertions this crushing rejoinder was made: 

The protest of the German delegation shows that they 
fail to understand the position in which Germany stands 
to-day. They seem to think that Germany has only to 
"make sacrifices in order to obtain peace," as if this were 
but the end of some mere struggle for territory and power. 
The Allied and Associated Powers therefore feel it neces- 
sary to begin their reply by a clear statement of the judg- 
ment of the world, which has been forged by practically 
the whole of civilized mankind. 

In the view of the Allied and Associated Powers the war 
which began on the ist of August, 1914, was the greatest 
crime against humanity and the freedom of the peoples 
that any nation calling itself civilized has ever consciously 
committed. For many years the rulers of Germany, true 
to the Prussian tradition, strove for a position of dominance 
in Europe. They were not satisfied with that growing 
prosperity and influence to which Germany was entitled, 
and which all other nations were willing to accord her, or 
the society of free and equal position. 

They required that they should be able to dictate and 
tyrannize over a subservient Europe, as they dictated and 
tyrannized over a subservient Germany. In order to 
attain their ends they used every channel through which 
to educate their own subjects in the doctrine that might 
was right in international affairs. They never ceased to 
expand German armaments by land and sea, and to propa- 
gate the falsehood that it was necessary because Ger- 
many's neighbors were jealous of her prosperity and power. 
She sought to sow hostilities and suspicion instead of 
friendship between nations. 

222 



THE ZERO HOUR 

They developed a system of espionage and intrigue 
through which they were enabled to stir up international 
rebelHon and unrest, and even to make secret offensive 
preparations within the territory of their neighbors, where- 
by they might, when the moment came, strike them down 
with greater certainty and ease. They kept Europe in a 
ferment by threats of violence, and when they found that 
their neighbors were resolved to resist their arrogant will 
they determined to assert their predominance in Europe 
by force. 

As soon as their preparations were complete, they en- 
couraged a subservient ally to declare war on Serbia at 
forty-eight hours* notice, a war involving the control of the 
Balkans, which they knew could not be localized and which 
was bound to unchain a general war. In order to make 
doubly sure, they refused every attempt at conciliation 
and conference until it was too late and the World War was 
inevitable for which they had plotted and for which alone 
among the nations they were adequately equipped and 
prepared. 

Germany's responsibility, however, is not confined to 
having planned and started the war. She is no less respon- 
sible for the savage and inhuman manner in which it was 
conducted. Though Germany was herself a guarantor of 
Belgium, the rulers of Germany violated their solemn 
promise to respect the neutrality of this unoffending people. 
Not content with this, they deliberately carried out a 
series of promiscuous shootings and burnings with the sole 
object of terrifying the inhabitants into submission by the 
very frightfulness of their action. 

They were the first to use poisonous gas, notwithstanding 
the appalling suffering it entailed. They began the bombing 
and long-distance shelling of towns for no military object, 
but solely for the purpose of reducing the morale of their 
opponents by striking at their women and children. They 
commenced the submarine campaign, with its piratical 
challenge to international law and its destruction of great 
numbers of innocent passengers and sailors in midocean, 
far from succor, at the mercy of the winds and waves, and 
the yet more ruthless submarine crews. 

223 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

They drove thousands of men ana women and children 
with brutal savagery into slavery in foreign lands. They 
allowed barbarities to be practised against their prisoners 
of war from which the most uncivilized people would have 
recoiled. 

The conduct of Germany is almost unexampled in human 
history. The terrible responsibility which lies at her doors 
can be seen in the fact that not less than 7,000,000 dead 
lie buried in Europe, while more than 20,000,000 others 
carry upon them the evidence of wounds and suffering, 
because Germany saw fit to gratify her lust for tyranny 
by a resort to war. 



Justice, therefore, is the only possible basis for the set- 
tlement of the accounts of this terrible war. Justice is 
what the German delegation asks for, and says that Ger- 
many has been promised. But it must be justice for all. 
There must be justice for the dead and wounded, and for 
those who have been orphaned and bereaved, that Europe 
might be free from Prussian despotism. There must be 
justice for the peoples who now stagger under war debts 
which exceed ^30,000,000,000 that liberty might be saved. 
There must be justice for those millions whose homes and 
lands and property German savagery has spoliated and 
destroyed. 

This is why the Allied and Associated Powers have 
insisted as a cardinal feature of the treaty that Germany 
must undertake to make reparation to the very uttermost 
of her power, for reparation for wrongs inflicted is of the 
essence of justice. That is why they insist that those 
individuals who are most clearly responsible for German 
aggression and for those acts of barbarism and inhumanity 
which have disgraced the German conduct of the war 
must be handed over to justice, which has not been meted 
out to them at home. That, too, is why Germany must 
submit for a few years to certain special disabilities and 
arrangements. 

Germany has ruined the industries, the mines, and the 
machinery of neighboring countries, not during battle, but 
with the deliberate and calculated purpose of enabling her 

224 



THE ZERO HOUR 

own industries to seize their markets before their industries 
could recover from the devastation thus wantonly inflicted 
upon them. Germany has despoiled her neighbors of 
everything she could make use of or carry away. Germany 
has destroyed the shipping of all nations on the high seas, 
where there was no chance of rescue for the passengers 
and crews. 

It is only justice that restitution should be made, and 
that these wronged peoples should be safeguarded for a 
time from the competition of a nation whose industries 
are intact and have even been fortified by machinery 
stolen from occupied territories. 

If these things are hardships for Germany, they are 
hardships which Germany has brought upon herself. 
Somebody must suffer for the consequences of the war. 
Is it to be Germany or the peoples she has wronged ? Not 
to do justice to all concerned would only leave the world 
open to fresh calamities. If the German people themselves, 
or any other nation, are to be deterred from following the 
footsteps of Prussia; if mankind is to be lifted out of the 
belief that war for selfish ends is legitimate to any state; 
if the old era is to be left behind, and nations as well as 
individuals are to be brought beneath the reign of law, even 
if there is to be early reconciliation and appeasement — it 
will be because those responsible for concluding the war 
have had the courage to see that justice is not deflected for 
the sake of a convenient peace. 

It is said that the German revolution ought to make a 
difference, and that the German people are not responsible 
for the policy of the rulers whom they have thrown from 
power. The Allied and Associated Powers recognize and 
welcome the change. It represents great hope for peace 
and a new European order in the future, but it cannot 
affect the settlement of the war itself. 

The German revolution was stayed until the German 
armies had been defeated in the field and all hope of profiting 
by a war of conquest had vanished. Throughout the war, 
as before the war, the German people and their representa- 
tives supported the war, voted the credits, subscribed to 
the war loans, obeyed every order, however savage, of their 

225 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

government. They shared the responsibility for the policy 
of their government, for at any moment, had they willed 
it, they could have reversed it. 

Had that policy succeeded they would have acclaimed 
it with the same enthusiasm with which they welcomed the 
outbreak of the war. They cannot now pretend, having 
changed their rulers after the war was lost, that it is justice 
that they should escape the consequences of their deeds. 

• •••••• 

In conclusion, the Allied and Associated Powers must 
make it clear that this letter and the memorandum attached 
constitute their last word. They have examined the 
German observations and counter-proposals with earnest 
attention and care. They have, in consequence, made 
important modifications in the draft treaty, but in its prin- 
ciples they stand by it. 

They believe that it is not only a just settlement of the 
Great War, but that it provides the basis upon which the 
peoples of Europe can live together in friendship and 
equality. At the same time it creates the machinery for 
the peaceful adjustment of all international problems by 
discussion and consent, and whereby the settlement of 
1 9 19 itself can be modified from time to time to suit new 
facts and new conditions as they arise. 

Another important German demand was for 
immediate admission to the League of Nations. 
In answer, the Allies expressed earnest hope of 
the "early entry of Germany into the League," 
but felt that it would be wise to wait until the 
revolution proved itself a "permanent change." 

Military terms were modified, the revision 
permitting Germany to maintain temporarily 
an army of 2CX),ooo instead of 100,000, certain 
demands with respect to Helgoland were granted, 
and important rectifications were made as to the 
Polish frontier. While explicit refusal met the 
German request to retain Dantzig, instead of 

226 



THE ZERO HOUR 

turning it over to the League of Nations, the 
German contention for a plebiscite in Upper 
Silesia was allowed. It was also agreed that the 
historic frontier between Pomerania and West 
Prussia should be established. 

German objections to the Schleswig settlement 
were answered by the statement that the plebis- 
cite, as planned, was no more than what Prussia 
had promised by treaty in 1864. It was also 
explained that the award of the communal woods 
of Prussian Moresnet to Belgium was not puni- 
tive, but merely partial compensation for the 
destruction of Belgian forests. 

With respect to her colonies, Germany agreed 
that they should be turned over to the League 
of Nations, but claimed the right to be named as 
mandatory. This was rejected by reason of the 
abuses that invariably attended German colonial 
administration, and the theory of hampered 
economic development was met by the proof 
that pre-war figures showed that only one-half 
of I per cent, of Germany's exports and one-half 
of I per cent, of her imports were with her own 
colonies. 

While accepting obligation to pay for all 
damages sustained by the civil populations in 
the occupied parts of Belgium and France, 
Germany opposed reparation to other occupied 
territories in Italy, Montenegro, Serbia, Ru- 
mania, and Poland, as no attack in contradiction 
to international law was involved. In answer 
It was pointed out that the President's Fourteen 
Points, explicitly accepted by Germany as a 
base of settlement, made plain statement that 

16 227 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the damage to these countries must be paid 
for. While it was denied that liberated coun- 
tries should be expected to pay any part of the 
German war debt, there was admission that they 
should bear their proper portion of pre-war 
debts. 

Questions of reparations, coal, shipping, river 
control, and other economic phases of the dis- 
cussion will be treated in succeeding chapters, 
as they call for more than brief comment. 



XV 

MR. KEYNES's JEREMIAD 

VARIOUS references have already been made 
to The Economic Consequences of the Peace^ 
the work of John Maynard Keynes, an English- 
man. In considering the details of the treaty, 
these references will become increasingly numer- 
ous, for more exactly and comprehensively than 
any other Mr. Keynes has caught up and ex- 
pressed every attack, misrepresentation, dis- 
tortion, and malignance. His book — ^jerked into 
notoriety by those who hate the President, 
endowed with scriptural values by every German, 
Austrian, and Hungarian, copied extensively 
by reactionary and radical publications, and 
hailed with joy by the semi-intelHgent as a 
short cut to statecraft — has done more than 
any other thing to poison the wells of pubHc 
opinion. 

An American wit once said that an accountant 
was merely a "bookkeeper out of a job." He 
might have commented also that the usual 
economist is a clerk risen to the importance of 
carrying a leather portfolio. Another confusion 
is in the matter of definition. In America 
"liberal" implies a state of mind; in England 
Liberal applies to a national political party. 

229 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

In America liberalism is based upon ideals; in 
England Liberalism is based upon partizan- 
ship. These distinctions must be borne in mind 
in any consideration of Mr. Keynes's book. 
He does not write as a liberal, but as a Liberal, 
and his book is in no sense the protest of an out- 
raged conscience, but the explicit announcement 
of a party program in support of a definite party 
objective.' The Liberals of England have never 
forgiven Lloyd George for his desertion and 
betrayals, and his vagrant course at the Peace 
Conference provided the opportunity for assault 
that was denied them during the war. The 
Welsh chameleon and his Tory associates are 
now to be thrown out of office, and Liberals and 
Labor are to be put in their places. This is Mr. 
Keynes's primary oflFensive, and at the end he 
states it frankly, explaining that "the replace- 
ment of the existing governments" is a necessary 
preliminary to any honest readjustment. 

The Premier is held up to scorn as an oppor- 
tunist when he is not scourged as a charlatan, and 
the consequences of his opportunism and char- 
latanry are painted in terms of anarchy, disaster, 
and ruin. The flings at President Wilson are 
largely incidental, included, perhaps, for the 
sake of the American sale, but chiefly for the 
purpose of catering to that large segment of the 
British population that is never so happy as in 
hearing America and Americans shamed and 
derided. 

Having launched the drive to "kick the ras- 
cals out,'* the next step, naturally, is a platform 
based upon national and material interests. 

230 



MR. KEYNES'S JEREMIAD 

Lloyd George and the Tories have done fairly 
well by England in the matter of profits. It must 
be shown to the electorate that Mr. Keynes and 
the Liberals can do better. The result is a cold- 
blooded program based upon the betrayal of 
every obligation of honor and friendship. In the 
first place, America is urged to cancel England's 
indebtedness, and in event that we are not 
generous enough to adopt the suggestion, there 
is the frank threat of repudiation. This done, 
America is to make a new loan. 

In the second place, the program calls explicitly 
for the complete rehabilitation of Germany and 
the equally complete demoralization of France. 
In plain words, France is to be destroyed as a 
rival and Germany is to be built up as a customer. 
There is no longer any German merchant marine, 
there are no longer any German colonies and the 
German hold on world trade has been broken 
in the Levant, the Orient, Africa, and South 
America. England's control of the seas is abso- 
lute, and therefore England has nothing to fear 
from German rehabilitation, but everything to 
hope. A rich, powerful Germany — cut off from 
the sea — may become a menace to the Continent, 
but not to England. It is from England that 
the Germans will be forced to buy — it is through 
England that Germany will be forced to sell. 
The weak point in the plan is German poverty; 
and the remedy for this is the restoration of 
Germany to her pre-war status, minus colonies, 
navy, and merchant marine. Mr. Keynes works 
boldly to his object, not fearing to paint this 
picture of the idyllic conditions of 1914: 

231 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

The interference of frontiers and of tariffs was reduced 
to a minimum, and not far short of three hundred millions 
of people lived within the three Empires of Russia, Ger- 
many, and Austria-Hungary. The various currencies, 
which were all maintained on a stable basis in relation to 
^Id and to one another, facilitated the easy flow of capital 
and of trade to an extent the full value of which we only 
realize now, when we are deprived of its advantages. Over 
this great area there was an almost absolute security of 
property and of person.* 

At whatever cost — ^to the Continent — ^this 
happy family must be brought together again. 
It is "abhorrent and detestable" that France 
should be permitted to recapture Alsace-Lor- 
raine and exercise suzerainty over the Saar 
Basin, although Mr. Keynes is able to view with 
equanimity the English seizure of Germany's 
African possessions. The Dantzig corridor for 
Poland is part of a policy "not authorized by 
religion or natural morals," but Mr. Keynes's 
religion and morals approve the taking and 
keeping of the German ships by England. An 
"unworkable" condition is created by the action 
of the Poles and Czechs in assuming control of 
the Silesian coal-fields, but every interest of 
efficiency is served by the action of England in 
absorbing Persia, annexing Egypt, and filching 
Mesopotamia and the Hedjaz. Through all the 
centuries ^^ perfide Alhion^^ has been a cry of hate 
and reproach, but it has remained for this Eng- 
lish government clerk, writing in the name of 
humanity, to give new and greater force to the 
ancient indictment of British faith. 

At every point, in every word, The Economic 

1 J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peaces p. 15. 

232 



MR. KEYNES'S JEREMIAD 

Consequences of the Peace is a brutal attack upon 
England's allies — that they may not be permitted 
to dispute England's program of trade imperi- 
alism — and an equally indecent attempt to 
restore Germany as an European autocracy, 
robbed of sea-power and barred from world 
trade, and therefore forced to buy and sell 
through England. France is derided and re- 
buked, her wrongs ignored, her sufferings min- 
imized. Belgium is an object of contempt, for, 
while Mr. Keynes admits a certain amount of 
sacrifice in 1914, "she played a minor role" 
thereafter and sacrificed as little as possible, 
thinking it sufficient to pride herself on not 
having made long ago a separate peace with 
Germany. 

Poland, no less than Belgium and France, 
excites anger by the bare presumption of na- 
tional existence. "She is to be strong. Catholic, 
militarist and faithful, the consort, or at least 
the favorite of victorious France, prosperous 
and magnificent between the ashes of Russia and 
the ruin of Germany. Rumania, if only she 
could be persuaded to keep up appearances a 
little more, is a part of the same scatter-brained 
conception."^ 

Prof. Charles D. Hazen of Columbia has 
characterized this as a "gift of quite gratuitous 
insult" and points it out as an "excellent example 
of Mr. Keynes's highly perfected art of slurring 
those who helped win this war, without under- 
going the labor of presenting the situation with 
any fairness.'* 

^ J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, p. 291. 

233 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Another authority, Prof. Charles H. Haskins 
of Harvard, has also passed judgment in these 
words : 

Throughout the book the author's economic conceptions 
are curiously static. He pleads for the restoration of pre- 
war conditions as far as possible, irrespective of the fact 
that they gave Germany a position of peculiar advantage 
in Europe, and he opposes any correction of this balance in 
favor either of France or of the new states of the East. 
Having adopted a Germanocentric theory of European 
economic life, he follows it through. A little more imagina- 
tion would show him that many readjustments are possible 
with the opening up of new natural resources and lines of 
trade and with the extension of the industrial revolution to 
eastern Europe; and a little more sympathy with non- 
German peoples would show him the injustice of re-estab- 
lishing a state of affairs which Germany exploited to her 
own selfish advantage. Readjustment inevitably causes 
hardship in Germany, but it is necessary to prevent Ger- 
man dominance over peoples whom the war has at last 
set free. 

Professor Haskins is mistaken, however, in 
assuming that Mr. Keynes is content with any 
mere "restoration of pre-war conditions." With 
the Imperial German Empire restored — ex- 
cepting colonies and ships, which England will 
retain — ^the claims of Belgium, France, Serbia, 
and Italy eliminated, and the absurd pretensions 
of Poland and Czechoslovakia wiped out, the 
next step in the program is to turn Russia over 
to "German enterprise and organization'' for 
the restoration of Russian productivity. To 
quote Mr. Keynes: 

It is impossible geographically and for many other 
reasons for Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Americans to un- 
dertake it; we have neither the incentive nor the means for 

234 



MR. KEYNES'S JEREMIAD 

doing the work on a sufficient scale. Germany, on the other 
hand, has the experience, the incentive, and to a large 
extent the materials for furnishing the Russian peasant 
with the goods of which he has been starved for the past 
five years, for reorganizing the business of transport and 
collection, and so for bringing into the world's pool, for the 
common advantage, the supplies from which we are now 
so disastrously cut off. It is in our interest to hasten the 
day when German agents and organizers will be in a posi- 
tion to set in train in every Russian village the impulses of 
ordinary economic motive.^ 

Nor is this all. One of Mr. Keynes's important 
"remedies" is the establishment of a free union 
of countries ^^undertaking to impose no protec- 
tionist tariffs whatever against the produce of other 
members of the union. Germany y Poland y the 
new states which formerly composed the Austro- 
Hungarian and Turkish Empires, and the man- 
dated states should be compelled to adhere to this 
union for ten years, after which time adherence 
would be voluntary. The adherence of other states 
would be voluntary from the outset. But it is to 
be hoped that the United Kingdom, at any rate, 
would become an original member. . . . By the pro- 
posed Free Trade Union some part of the loss of 
organization and economic efficiency may be re- 
trieved, which must otherwise result from the in- 
numerable new political frontiers now created 
between greedy, jealous, immature, and economically 
incomplete nationalist states. Economic frontiers 
were tolerable so long as an immense territory was 
included in a few great empires, but they will not 
be tolerable when the empires of Germany, Austria- 

' J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peaces pp. 
293-294. 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Hungary, Russia, and Turkey have been parti-' 
tioned between some twenty independent author- 
ities^^ 

In plain words, Mr. Keynes proposes to have 
the treaty give to Germany what Germany failed 
to win by war. The "greedy, jealous, and im- 
mature" small states, having won their freedom 
from Germany by blood and sacrifice, are to be 
restored to the commercial ownership of Ger- 
many in the sacred name of economics. It is 
the German dream of Mittel-Europa that Mr. 
Keynes wants to see come true. The list of 
countries that he sets down is precisely the list 
that Doctor Naumann enumerated in his grandi- 
ose plan for gaining for Germany the economic 
mastery of central and southeastern Europe. 
Compelled to enter the union and denied the 
right to erect a single tariff barrier against Ger- 
many, the new states would indeed be given a 
splendid chance to build up their industries! 
The one change in the Mittel-Europa program, 
as declared by Naumann, is that the United 
Kingdom will also enter, cannily directing and 
sharing in the profits of this economic conquest. 

These brutalities might be forgiven to Mr. 
Keynes, for he is the inheritor of commercial 
traditions. For centuries the British govern- 
ment has made trade its god, annexation its 
religion, and while there is reason to believe that 
a new generation is commencing to view hypoc- 
risy and rapacity with disgust, the official class 
is still the creature of old habit. It is impossible, 

M. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, pp. 
265-266. 

236 



MR. KEYNES'S JEREMIAD 

however, to forgive him for his inhumanity. 
That is a personal quality. Nothing stands 
more clear than that the military masters of 
Germany precipitated the World War in cold 
blood, working a horror of desolation that is ex- 
pressed in millions of graves, in sad hosts of r\ 
maimed and blind, in the destruction of cities, 
the devastation of great areas, the ruined lives 
of whole populations, and the blight of a future 
that had every promise of fairness. One searches 
in vain through the pages of Mr. Keynes for a 
single word of condemnation addressed to Ger- 
many — for a single word of sympathy addressed 
to Belgium, France, Italy, or Serbia. Almost 
tearfully he quotes paragraph after paragraph 
from German writers telling of the sufferings of 
German children, and in one foot-note he prints 
this pathetic story: 

You see this child here, the physician in charge explained; 
it consumed an incredible amount of bread, and yet did not 
get any stronger. I found out that it hid all the bread it 
received underneath its straw mattress. The fear of hunger 
was so deeply rooted in the child that it collected stores 
instead of eating the food: a misguided animal instinct 
made the dread of hunger worse than the actual pangs. 

No one would wish to take away a throb of 
pity from the little ones of the Central Powers 
and each day sees America raising vast amounts 
for child relief in Germany, Austria, and Hun- 
gary. But is no word to be said in behalf of 
the children of France, of Belgium, of Poland, 
of Serbia, and of Italy .f* What of the desolated 
homes in Allied countries, the tragic flights of 
families, of whole communities; the tragic toll 

237 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

in human life that was taken by hunger, cold, 
and hardship ? Of all this there is no word from 
Mr. Keynes. Human wretchedness must cry 
its despair in German to reach his ears. At 
one point he says: 

The German commentators had little difficulty in showing 
that the draft treaty constituted a breach of engagements 
and of international moraHty comparable with their own 
offense in the invasion of Belgium. 

Professor Hazen has made the best comment, 
saying: 

This amazing statement accurately presents the tone that 
pervades the book from cover to cover. From this passage, 
as from many others, the reader can form his own idea of 
the sobriety of judgment, the restraint of language, the 
intellectual discrimination of the author. The world out- 
side central Europe long ago formed a very definite idea of 
the morality involved in the invasion of Belgium. Mr. 
Keynes places the treaty alongside as a fit and adequate 
companion-piece. He is entitled to all the repute he may 
get as a fair thinker from that phrase. At any rate, he gives 
us a clear revelation of his critical standards. 

As bearing upon the fairness of Mr. Keynes, 
it is noteworthy that there is neither record nor 
remembrance of any advancement of his "liberal" 
views while acting as a representative of the 
British Treasury at the Peace Conference. The 
members of the American delegation, such as 
were concerned with reparations, have the very 
distinct recollection that his one effort was to 
get everything possible for the British Empire, 
regardless of justice, and that his only other bias 
was a certain definite antagonism to France and 
the French. Also, in a recent letter to Prof. 

238 



MR. KEYNES'S JEREMIAD 

AUyn Young this amazing economist expressed 
regret that his book should have been construed 
as an attack upon the President, concluding, 
naively, **0f course I recognize that President 
Wilson was the noblest figure in Paris.'* 

In the matter of honor Mr. Keynes is no less 
peculiar and individual, as stands proved by the 
slightest consideration of what he is pleased to 
call his "remedies." That he is valued chiefly 
as a rhetorician, by the way, rather than as an 
economist, is made obvious by the fact that not 
one of these "remedies" has ever been given 
serious attention by any of the papers or the 
people who have been most vigorous in applaud- 
ing his phrases. The principal "remedy" pro- 
posed by Mr. Keynes is the entire cancelation 
of inter-Ally indebtedness, which, reduced to 
terms, is a frank demand that the United States 
shall wipe off the ten billions owed by the Allies. 
Mr. Keynes assumes that when America gave 
the money that "it was not in the nature of an 
investment," and he also mentions casually that 
"the financial sacrifices of the United States 
have been, in proportion to her wealth, immensely 
less than those of European states." ^ 

In event that these great debts are not can- 
celed, thereby giving a "stimulus to the solidar- 
ity and true friendUness of the nations lately 
associated," Mr. Keynes bhthely advances a 
policy of repudiation: "On the one hand, 
Europe must depend in the long run on her 
own daily labor and not on the largesse of 
America; but, on the other hand, she will not 

1 J. M. Ke3mes, The Economic Consequences of the Peaccy p. 273. 

239 



vy 



^>^ 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

pinch herself in order that the fruit of her daily 
labor may go elsewhere. In short, I do not 

yt, believe that any of these tributes will continue 
to be paid, at the best, for more than a very 

^ f ew years. They do not square with human 
nature or agree with the spirit of the age.^ . . . 
It might be an exaggeration to say that it is 
impossible for the European Allies to pay the 
capital and interest due from them on these 
debts, but to make them do so would certainly 
be to impose a crushing burden. They may be 
expected, therefore, to make constant attempts 
to evade or escape payment, and these attempts 
will be a constant source of international friction 
and ill will for many years to come. A debtor 
nation does not love its creditor. ... There 
will be a great incentive to them to seek their 
friends in other directions, and any future rupture 
of peaceable relations will always carry with it 
the enormous advantage of escaping the payment 
of external debts. "^ 

This must be regarded as the voice of England 
alone, for no other country has suggested can- 
celation except England. And what is that but 
a direct threat, the blackmail of force? By no 
means will "Europe pinch herself" in order to 
pay her debts. America pinched herself to 
lend, and to-day is paying burdensome taxes 
to carry the loans, but England is of greater 
sensitiveness, and these sordid money transac- 
tions irk her proud spirit. Either America must 
cancel the debt or else we may expect repudia- 

1 J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peacey p. 282. 
^Ihidy p. 278. 

240 



MR. KEYNES'S JEREMIAD 

tion and enmity. "A debtor nation does not 
love its creditor*' and "rupture of peaceable 
relations" are ugly phrases pregnant with 
warning. 

Passing on, Mr. Keynes next proposes an 
international loan, **a fund of one billion in the 
first instance," and to be made by the United 
States as a matter of course. Having repudiated 
ten billions as "not squaring with the spirit of 
the age," even the naive mind of Mr. Keynes 
is impressed by the necessity of reassuring the 
lender with regard to the second loan, and he is 
entirely willing that the additional biUion "should 
be borrowed with the unequivocal intention 
of its being repaid in full." Of course, if America 
does not care to enter into this easy arrange- 
ment, there is the possibility that the indicated 
"rupture of peaceable relations" may provide 
a way to make us. 

Detailed answer to Mr. Keynes, however, 
requires a volume all its own. Any full exposure 
of the contradictions that crowd his pages would 
necessitate lengthy and painstaking analysis, 
particularly with respect to foot-notes, for it is 
in their small type that the author huddles the 
facts that he misrepresents in the bolder type 
of his text. In the chapters that follow only the 
fundamental misstatements of the book will be 
checked. 

Nor is it the intent of the writer to paint 
either the treaty or the Covenant as documents 
of perfection. Whatever their faults, however, 
their justice cannot be questioned. Had the 
Germans been stripped of every asset and sub- 

241 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

jected to vassalage for generations to come, still 
would the punishment have fallen far short of 
their monstrous crime. As a matter of truth, 
the actual terms are in no wise akin to enslave- 
ment. If the Germans will work in peace as 
they worked in war, bringing to reparation the 
same passionate energy that they devoted to 
destruction, the treaty will work. Life will 
be hard for them, to be sure, but is it argued 
that life is going to be easy in France, Belgium, 
Italy, or Serbia? 

Framed in an hour of passion, with emphasis 
placed entirely on territorial and political issues, 
and one man only standing in championship of 
ideals, there are many changes that will have 
to be made in a spirit of mercy, for justice, 
especially when applied with literalness, has 
a way of being harsh. What escapes Mr. 
Keynes's notice, for the most part, and the 
notice of the majority of people entirely, is that 
ample provision is made for this machinery of 
accommodation. When the heat of nationalism 
has died down and passions have abated, and 
when the necessities of the workaday world 
have developed mutuality of interest, the Rep- 
arations Commission may be expected to dis- 
charge its high duties in such manner as to 
restore the normalities of commerce, industry, 
and intercourse. 

In the mean time, the Treaty and the Cove- 
nant, for all their faults, stand as a great and note- 
worthy attempt to rebuild the world on founda- 
tions of liberty, peace, and fraternity. 



XVI 

WHAT MUST GERMANY PAY? 

THE principal confusion with respect to the 
treaty centers naturally around the matter 
of reparations. Huge calculations are intricate 
at best, and for reasons that will be explained 
the Allies were at pains to avoid explicitness in 
the indemnity clauses. This premeditated vague 
ness, while essentially in the interest of the 
Germans, nevertheless lends itself admirably 
to their campaign of distortion. Mr. Keynes, 
for instance, declares that Germany must pay a 
total of $40,000,000,000 and insists that this 
crushing burden will have the effect of reducing 
a people "to servitude for a generation, of 
degrading the lives of millions of human beings, 
and of depriving a whole nation of happiness." 
Mr. David Hunter Miller, legal adviser to the 
American Peace Commission, has answered this 
bold misrepresentation in detail, showing plainly 
"that instead of an indemnity of $40,000,000,000 
laid upon Germany, as claimed hy Mr. Keynes, 
with annual payments of nearly $4,000,000,000, 
the indemnity of the treaty amounts to approxi- 
mately $14,000,000,000; that this sum cannot he 
added to except hy a unanimous determination of 
the Reparations Commission {composed of repre- 
sentatives of the United State s. Great Britain, 
17 243 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

France^ Italy, and Belgium), that Germany is in 
equity able to pay more, and that before any such 
determination, evidence and argument on behalf 
of Germany must be heard." 

Subjected to analysis, the indemnity clauses 
of the treaty are as clear and simple as a sum 
in primary arithmetic, and stand at every point 
in flat contradiction to the figures of Mr. Keynes 
and the German economists. Germany's first 
payment is set for May I, 1921, in the sum of 
20,000,000,000 marks, or, accepting the gold 
mark as equal to a quarter of a dollar, ^5,000,- 
000,000. As credit items against this payment, 
the Germans are permitted to list the expenses 
of the Army of Occupation, ships, coal, securities, 
machinery, cattle, and such other assets as she 
may turn over to the Allies prior to May i, 192 1. 
There is also the provision that "such supplies 
of food and raw material as may be judged by 
the governments of the principal Allied and 
Associated Powers to be essential to enable 
Germany to meet the obligations for reparation 
may also, with the approval of the said govern- 
ments, be paid for out of the above sum." 

In plain words, a part or the whole of this sum 
may be reloaned to Germany for the recon- 
struction of her economic life. As Mr. Keynes 
is compelled to admit, even if sneeringly: "This 
is a qualification of high importance. The 
clause, as it is drafted, allows the Finance Minis- 
ters of the Allied countries to hold out to their 
electorates the hope of substantial payments at 
an early date, while at the same time it gives to 
the Reparations Commission a discretion, which 

244 



WHAT MUST GERMANY PAY? 

the force of facts will compel them to exercise, 
to give back to Germany what is required for the 
maintenance of her economic existence/' 

The second monetary demand upon Germany 
is for ^10,000,000,000 in bonds, carrying interest 
at zyi per cent, from May 2, 1921, to 1926, and 
at 5 per cent, plus i per cent, for amortization 
thereafter. In event, however, of Germany's 
failure to meet completely the first payment of 
$5,000,000,000, any unpaid balance is to be con- 
verted into interest-bearing bonds of the same 
character as the $10,000,000,000 issue and added 
to that issue. As an example of Mr. Keynes's 
honest purpose, he makes this declaration in his 
text, "Assuming, therefore, that Germany is 
not able to provide any appreciable surplus 
toward reparation before 1921, she will have to 
find a sum of $375,000,000 annually from 1921 
to 1925, and $900,000,000 annually thereafter.*' ^ 

It will thus be seen that he wipes out en- 
tirely any possibility of offsets, allowing noth- 
ing at all for the German ships, coal, securities, 
etc. In one of his coy foot-notes, however, he 
says, "If, per impossible^ Germany discharged 
$2,500,000,000 in cash or kind by 192 1, her 
annual payments would be at the rate of $312,- 
500,000 from 1921 to 1925 and of $750,000,000 
thereafter." ^ 

As a matter of truth, many conservative 
economists figure that these credit items will 
reach a total that may discharge the entire obli- 
gation, but none places them at less than $2,500,- 

^ J. M. Ke5mes, The Economic Consequences oj the Feace^ p. 164. 
'^Ihid.y p. 164. 

245 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

000,000.^ Assuming, then, that Germany is 
able to make no cash payment on May 21, 191 2, 
and has nothing to offer but her offsets, there 
will remain a balance of $2,500,000,000 to add 
to the bond issue of $10,000,000,000, making a 
total of $12,500,000,000. This is the only sum 
that Germany is asked to pay. It is, in fact, the 
whole German indemnity. The interest charge 
on this amount would be $312,500,000 a year 
until 1926, and thereafter an annual payment 
of $750,000,000 to take care of interest and 
amortization. This amount does not include, or 
even touch upon, the general war costs of the 
Allies, representing only a reasonable estimate of 
the damage done to non-combatants and their 
property. As Mr. Keynes is compelled to admit: 

A great part of Annex I is in strict conformity with the 
pre-armistice conditions, or, at any rate, does not strain 
them beyond what is fairly arguable. Paragraph i claims 
damage done for injury to the persons of civilians, or, in the 
case of death, to their dependents, as a direct consequence of 
acts of war; Paragraph 2, for acts of cruelty, violence, or 
maltreatment on the part of the enemy toward civilian 
victims; Paragraph 3, for enemy acts injurious to health 
or capacity to work or to honor toward civilians in occupied 
or invaded territory; Paragraph 8, for forced labor exacted 
by the enemy from civilians; Paragraph 9, for damage done 
to property with the exception of naval and military works 
or materials as a direct consequence of hostilities; and 
Paragraph 10, for fines and levies imposed by the enemy 
upon the civilian population. All these demands are just 
and in conformity with the Allies* rights. 

Nor is the amount of $15,000,000,000, minus 



^ A recent press despatch gives the information that Germany 
is estimating these credit items in excess of five billions. 

246 



WHAT MUST GERMANY PAY? 

credit items, less than just. Mr. Keynes him^ 
self presents this estimate of damage:^ 

Belgium $2,500,000,000 

France 4,000,000,000 

Great Britain 2,850,000,000 

Other Allies 1,250,000,000 

Total. ?■ 1 0,600,000,000 

Mr. Keynes admits that "no ,ftgures exist on 
which to base any scientific or eiact estimate," 
and so he frankly gives his own "guess for what 
it is worth." It is a guess that should have 
destroyed his book in the hour of its publication. 
His Belgian figure is based upon the sneer that 
hostilities were "confined to a small corner of 
the country, much of which in recent times was 
backward, poor, sleepy, and did not include the 
active industry of the country." The French 
claim of damage in the sum of ^13,000,000,000, 
without counting war levies, losses at sea, the 
roads, etc., is arbitrarily cut down to $4,000,000,- 
000. Serbia is dismissed with a reference to her 
"low economic development," and Italy, Ru- 
mania, and Greece are not even considered in 
detail, all being lumped together as "other 
Allies," and allowed $1,250,000,000 as con- 
trasted to England's $2,850,000,000. To be 
sure, he has the grace to remark: "It is sur- 
prising, perhaps, that the money value of Great 
Britain's claim should be so little short of that of 
France, and actually in excess of that of Belgium. 
But measured either by pecuniary loss or real 

^ J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peacey p. 134. 

247 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

loss to the economic power of the country, the 
injury to her mercantile marine was enormous." 
Amazing! 

Between the Keynes-German estimate of 
^10,000,000,000 and , the AlHed estimate of 
^40,000,000,000 honest opinion will decide that 
the sum of ^15,000,000,000 strikes a balance that 
is indeed mercjful to a nation that plunged a 
world into bloodshed and chaos. This amount, 
less an anticij^ated offset of ^2,500,000,000, is 
all that Germany is committed to pay. It were 
well indeed if the treaty had decreed that the 
amount was all that Germany was under any 
obligation to pay. Throughout his book Mr. 
Keynes bemoans the fact that a lump indemnity 
was not fixed — a sum within Germany's power to 
pay — but he does not state the fact, as he knew 
it to be a fact at the time, that this was the con- 
tention of the President from the first. Mr. 
Bernard M. Baruch, economic adviser to the 
American Peace Commission, has stated openly 
and repeatedly that the President and his eco- 
nomic advisers insisted at all times upon the 
imposition of a "fixed and reasonable sum," and 
that this sound proposition went down to defeat 
before the bitter, unyielding opposition of Lloyd 
George and Clemenceau. At this point it is 
necessary to quote Mr. Miller again, for not only 
is his an authoritative voice, but his statement 
of conditions is singularly clear and convincing: 

It is essential to look at the circumstances surrounding 
the Conference in the early months of 1919. No one then 
seriously thought that Germany could pay an indemnity 
equivalent to the capital sum of forty billions. Some 

246 



WHAT MUST GERMANY PAY? 

economists did make estimates of a possible total of twenty- 
five billions, but such a figure represented the blue sky of 
optimism. 

There were, however, some known factors in the situa- 
tion. One of these was that the amount which Germany 
could in reason pay was unknozvn. Whether that sum was 
ten billions, as Mr. Keynes thinks, or fifteen billions, or 
perhaps even twenty, as others thought, could not be pre- 
dicted then, and I venture to say cannot be predicted now. 
A second factor, moreover, was that any amount which 
Germany could fairly pay was less than the German debt. 
A third factor was public sentiment in Europe, particularly 
in Great Britain and France. Public sentiment is a fact. 
To yield to a wrong public sentiment may be a crime, but 
to adopt a course which without yielding permits sentiment 
to change and passions to cool is the part of wisdom. 

The conduct of the British election campaign of Decem- 
ber, 1918, and the utterances of politicians and economists 
on the Continent, had created a very wide-spread feeling 
among the peoples who had suffered by the war and who 
could not understand the mysteries of international trade, 
that their financial burdens would be greatly lessened and 
perhaps even removed by payments from Germany. This 
was a delusion which existed, however unfortunate or 
deplorable its origin. 

The question presented to the framers of the treaty was 
whether the existence of this delusion should be recognized 
by a form of the treaty which did not increase Germany's 
obligation to pay, but which left time for appreciation of 
realities by the Allied peoples, or whether they should adopt 
another form of the treaty and shock and enrage the senti- 
ment of a public suffering, depressed, and almost hyster- 
ical. The framers of the treaty chose the former course. 
I believe that their decision was wise and that history 
will sustain this view. 

Mr. Keynes, as a matter of fact, agrees with 
this view, for while he declares on page 147 that 
the sum to be paid by Germany should have 
been fixed at $10,000,000,000 at the very out- 

249 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

set, on page 158 he admits that "this was im- 
possible for two reasons. Two different kinds of 
false statements had been promulgated, one as 
to Germany's capacity to pay, the other as to 
the amount of the Allies' just claims in respect 
of the devastated areas. The fixing of either 
of these figures presented a dilemma." 

In reaching his decision the President found 
himself face to face with this dilemma. In the 
first place, Germany was bound by the armistice 
terms to pay in full for her cruel devastations. 
The Fourteen Points provided for damage done 
in invaded territory— Belgium, France, Ru- 
mania, Serbia, and Montenegro being specifically 
mentioned — but they did not include the loss 
caused by submarine sinkings, bombardments, 
or air raids. It was to cover these omissions, 
and any others, that the Allies suggested an 
addition to the effect that Germany must make 
compensation "/or all damage done to the civilian 
population of the Allies and to their property hy 
the aggression of Germany hy land, sea, and the 
air." There was also a provision that "any 
future claims of the Allies and the United States 
of America remain unaffected." 

The President had agreed to these additions. 
They had been included in the armistice. Ger- 
many, after careful examination, had signed the 
armistice. There was, therefore, no question as 
to German liability. It was even the case that 
under the armistice terms the Allies could have 
held Germany responsible for the devastations 
of Austria-Hungary and Turkey, "imposing con- 
tingent liabilities," as Mr. Keynes admits, 

250 



WHAT MUST GERMANY PAY? 

"without running seriously contrary to the 
general intention of their engagements." 

The President knew well, however, that it 
was not within the power of Germany to pay the 
full sum or even a half of the sum that stern 
justice could have demanded. He knew equally 
well that the governments of France, England, 
and Italy would fall if this fact should be ad- 
mitted openly in the treaty. It was not only 
the case that their statesmen, Lloyd George par- 
ticularly, had dealt in glowing promises, but also 
that the hopes of the peoples themselves ran 
naturally and inevitably along the line that it 
was right and necessary for Germany to restore 
pre-war conditions. As the one escape from 
national despair and international collapse, he 
assented to an agreement that did not increase 
Germany's obligation to pay, but which con- 
tinued the hope of the Allied peoples until the 
recovery of normality enabled them to look 
facts in the face. 

A Reparations Commission was created and 
in this civil body was vested full power in con- 
nection with the settlement. The sum of ^15,- 
(X>o,ooo,ooo was fixed as the amount that Ger- 
many should pay, and an additional bond issue 
of $io,ooo,ooo,CMDO was recognized as permissible. 
This obligation was the last word in indetermi- 
nateness, for it was to be issued "when and not 
until the Reparations Commission is satisfied 
that Germany can meet the interest and the 
sinking-fund obUgations." As a matter of course, 
this additional $10,000,000,000 bond issue will 
never be authorized. Mr. Miller, in an able 

251 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

consideration of the Reparations Commission, 
makes this explanation of procedure: 

How is the Commission to be convinced? In the first 
place, it is to be "guided by justice, equity, and good faith,*' 
although "not bound by any particular code or rules of law 
or by any particular rule of evidence or of procedure." In 
the second place, the Commission, to be convinced, must 
be unanimously convinced. This is specifically provided by 
Annex II, clause 13 b. 

In other words, the representatives of the United States, 
of Great Britain, of France, of Italy, and of Belgium must 
all be convinced, according to justice, equity, and good 
faith, that a further sum is payable or it will never be paid. 
But there is still another safeguard. The question cannot 
be decided without a hearing. The Commission in this 
matter is to act judicially; it must receive evidence and it 
must hear argument on behalf of Germany, and not until 
then can it decide. (Annex II, 9) 

Mr. Keynes strangely enough criticizes the requirement 
of unanimity, because the Commission must be unanimous 
in order to cancel or reduce the debt; but the dehty so far as 
it is not to be paid, either principal or interest, is a figment 
of the imagination. It is the payment that matters, and 
nothing else. 

In short, Mr. Keynes's conclusions (pages 167-168) are 
wholly unwarranted by the terms of the treaty. He says 
that the treaty fixes a sum far beyond Germany's capacity, 
which is then to be reduced at the discretion of a foreign 
commission acting with the object of obtaining each year 
the maximum. The contrary is the case. The treaty pro- 
vides for a payment reasonably within Germany's ability 
and permits its increase only upon evidence and proof 
which will convince all the representatives of the five 
powers that in justice and equity it should be increased. 

With respect to the Commission, Mr. Keynes 
admits that "it was necessary, therefore, to set 
up a body to estabhsh the bill of claim, to fix the 
mode of payment, and to approve necessary 

^52 



WHAT MUST GERMANY PAY? 

abatements and delays." Having granted this, 
however, he proceeds to distort and misrepresent 
its powers and purposes. He is not original in 
this. Almost word for word he follows the 
German attack made by BrockdorfF-Rantzau in 
the reply of May 29th, and to which the Allies 
replied: 

The observations of the German delegation present a 
view of this Commission so distorted and so inexact that it 
is difficult to believe that the clauses of the treaty have 
been calmly or carefully examined. It is not an engine of 
oppression or a device for interfering with German sov- 
ereignty. It has no forces at its command; it has no ex- 
ecutive powers within the territory of Germany; it cannot, 
as is suggested, direct or control the educational or other 
systems of the country. Its business is to ask what is to 
be paid; to satisfy itself that Germany can pay; and to 
report to the powers, whose delegation it is, in case Ger- 
many makes default. If Germany raises the money re- 
quired in her own way, the Commission cannot order that 
it shall be raised in some other way; if Germany offers 
payment in kind, the Commission may accept such pay- 
ment, but except as specified in the treaty itself, the Com- 
mission cannot require such a payment. 

The Reparations Commission, in plain, is the 
President's provision for tempering justice with 
mercy. If accepted by the Germans in faith 
and honesty, it will prove a speedy and effective 
agency for the restoration of their economic life. 
The purposes of the body go far beyond the mere 
collection of an indemnity, and are primarily 
concerned with the rehabilitation of Europe as 
a whole. It has the power to receive proposals 
from Germany for a lump-sum settlement, 
and it has the authority also to handle the 

253 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

fifteen-billlon-dollar imposition in such manner 
as to guard absolutely the interests of Germany. 
Mr. Keynes, in one of his bursts of contradiction, 
says: "Transferred to the League of Nations, 
an appanage of justice and no longer of interest, 
who knows that by a change of heart and object 
the Reparations Commission may not yet be 
transformed from an instrument of oppression 
and rapine into an economic council of Europe, 
whose object is the restoration of life and of 
happiness, even in the enemy countries?" 
This was its object at the time and it is more 
than ever its object to-day. 

These assertions are not based upon conject- 
ure. Long before the rise of Mr. Keynes 
there was open and official recognition of the 
facts that he presents in his book as "revela- 
tions." Mr. Bernard M. Baruch, economic 
adviser to the American delegation, appeared 
as a witness before the Foreign Relations Com- 
mittee of the Senate on August i, 191 9, and 
testified that the President had fought always 
for the naming of a "fixed and reasonable sum," 
and that while this was not done, he did succeed 
in vesting power in the Reparations Commission 
to adjust the German indemnity in such manner 
as to make it meet Germany's abilities. The 
following excerpts from his testimony well dis- 
close the spirit and intent of the President and 
his advisers: 

Senator Johnson (of California): So that, on the 
figures as obtainable and presentable now, the bill is one 
that you say you do not think Germany can pay, but you 
rely upon the fact that the good sense of the Reparations 

254 



WHAT MUST GERMANY PAY? 

Commission will scale the amount down to a point com- 
mensurate with the ability of Germany? 

Mr. Baruch: Yes; and within that power it has been 
left so that it would work. It is workable; there is no 
question about that. 

Senator Johnson (of California): They have the power 
and the contrary power as well? 

Mr. Baruch: Contrary power? What do you mean? 

Senator Johnson (of California): That is, the power to 
scale down and the discretion to fix as well the amount 
that might not be scaled down. 

Mr. Baruch: To fix the amount. But, of course, if the 
amount is fixed, personally, I think that will be the most 
workable treatment — to fix with Germany the amount 
which they themselves think they could pay. Of course, 
no one would fix an amount against a debtor that he did 
not think the debtor could pay. 

• •••••• 

Senator Harding: Why do you say that it (Germany's 
solvency) is to the interest of America, when the Central 
Powers are the most formidable commercial rival? 

Mr. Baruch: Can you imagine the world being prosper- 
ous while 130,000,000 people right in the center of the in- 
dustrial population are not prosperous? Can you imagine 
prosperity without the financial prosperity of the Central 
Powers, with the finances of Italy, France, and of Belgium 
and their industrial life, and to a large extent England's, 
depending on what they are going to receive from these 
people? In that way this reflects upon us. It is a great 
big partnership. We cannot separate ourselves from it. 
It is of vast consequence to America. . . . 

Senator Johnson: I want to get your viewpoint. Our 
activities will be wholly altruistic? 

Mr. Baruch: I would say no to that, for this reason: 
the spirit and the wisdom of the carrying out of this Repara- 
tions Commission is a matter of dollars and cents in the 
United States of America, because upon the wisdom of 
those decisions depend the financial and the industrial 
conditions of the world for years to come, perhaps for many 
generations. 

255 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Senator Johnson: Then it is from the world standpoint 
and for the stabilizing of the world? 

Mr. Baruch: And from our own personal interests. 
Germany was a very large customer of ours. And this 
Reparations Commission does not deal alone with Germany, 
but with all the great Central Empires, and there are some 
130,000,000 to 150,000,000 people involved in this. And it 
is a matter about which we are moved by great altruistic 
ideas primarily, but it is also a matter of deep self-interest. 

How, then, does Mr. Keynes reach his con- 
clusion that the total amount demanded of 
Germany is $40,000,000,000? His process is 
simple. He takes the first payment of $5,000,- 
000,000, and by disregarding the probable credit 
items of $2,500,000,000, puts down the full 
amount. To this he adds the second com- 
mitment of $10,000,000,000. Then, thrusting 
aside the fact that the third obligation of $10,- 
000,000,000 is permissive only and cannot be 
authorized until public hearings have convinced 
the Reparations Commission unanimously that 
Germany can pay this additional amount, he 
assumes it as an already collectible debt, thereby 
bringing his total up to $25,000,000,000. The 
inclusion of the third item is imaginative enough, 
in all truth, but in his next performance Mr. 
Keynes severs all connection with reality. 
Because the Allies possess the right to make claim 
for all damages, Mr. Keynes asserts that Ger- 
many will be expected to pay the amounts dis- 
bursed for pensions, allowances, and like com- 
pensations. This total, by one of his "guesses,** 
is placed at $15,000,000,000 and added to the 
accounts due and payable, thereby gaining the 
figure of $40,000,000,000 that he holds up to a 

256 



WHAT MUST GERMANY PAY? 

pitying world as the sum that Germany must 
pay. 

For the confusion of such German-Americans 
as have resurrected the hyphen, and for the 
information of the honest, let it be stated again 
that the sum total of Germany's specified obliga- 
tion under the treaty is $15,000,000,000, and 
that against this is a credit item conservatively 
estimated at $2,500,000,000. The President 
agreed to the inclusion of a further implied 
obligation, not because it stood as an expressed 
armistice right of the Allies, but because he 
saw it as the one bridge to the future. No man 
at the Peace Conference had any idea that the 
indemnity would ever be increased beyond 
the $15,000,000,000, but, on the other hand, 
many were of the opinion that the tentative 
amount would have to be scaled down — not 
from any sympathy with Germany, but out of 
the conviction that the rehabilitation of Ger- 
many's economic life was necessary to the health 
of the world. ^ The President's course is already 
justified. At this time of writing (April 25th) 
a saner Europe is already suggesting the "fixed 
and reasonable sum" that will give Germany a 
chance not only to restore prosperity, but a 
chance to cleanse the honor that she has dragged 
through blood and mire. 

^ At the time of the armistice Germany's immediately trans- 
ferable wealth was about $625,000,000. This, as a matter of 
course, was an available source of reparation, and could have 
been demanded by the Allies. Instead of this ruthless method, 
Germany was permitted to use $250,000,000 in gold for the 
purchase of food, also to export another $50,000,000 from the 
Reichsbank to meet her obligations in neutral countries. 



XVII 

THE QUESTION OF COAL 

MR. KEYNES, in considering the coal clauses 
of the treaty, is even more untrustworthy 
and contradictory than in his analysis of the 
cash indemnity. Commencing with the flat 
assertion that "the judgment of the world has 
already recognized the transaction of the Saar 
as an act of spoliation and insincerity," he paints 
a picture of industrial ruin that gives the manu- 
facturing districts of Germany tragic resemblance 
to the devastated areas of France, Belgium, and 
Italy. His method, as per habit, is to make the 
blackest possible statement of the case at the 
outset, and then, in later pages or in unobtrusive 
foot-notes, admit qualifying facts which, while 
not altering the force of his original attack, saves 
him from the direct charge of dishonesty. In the 
matter of coal, he juggles figures until he has 
them to his liking, and then sums up his arraign- 
ment of the treaty provisions in this confident 
sentence : 

"Our hypothetical calculations, therefore, leave 
us with post-war German domestic requirements 
on the basis of a pre-war efficiency of railways 
and industry of 110,000,000 tons against an out- 
put not exceeding 100,000,000 tons, of which 40,- 

258 



THE QUESTION OF COAL 

000,000 tons are mortgaged to the Allies." And 
on this flat statement he bases a somewhat pas- 
sionate assertion of Allied depravity, and a 
pathetic appeal in behalf of German industry. 

What are the facts? In the first place, Mr. 
Keynes ignores at every point this precise pledge 
of the treaty: "If the commission shall de- 
termine that the full exercise of the foregoing 
options would interfere unduly with the indus- 
trial requirements of Germany, the commission 
is authorized to postpone or to cancel deliveries, 
and in so doing to settle all questions of priority: 
but the coal to replace coal from destroyed mines 
shall receive priority over other deliveries." 

In page after page he insists upon 40,000,000 
tons as the coal that Germany "must" supply 
annually, and it is only in the fine type of a foot- 
note, tucked away at the bottom of page 97, 
that he makes the admission that as early as 
September, 191 9, the coal demands upon Germany 
were modified from a delivery of 4^,000,000 tons 
per annum to 20,000,000 tons. 

On pages 90 and 91 he states that the coal 
production of Germany, without the Saar, 
Alsace-Lorraine, and Upper Silesia, cannot pos- 
sibly exceed 100,000,000 tons, yet on page 97, 
in the usual foot-note, he admits that in Septem- 
ber, 1919, the level of production was 108,000,000 
tons. Also, through the usual medium of the 
inconspicuous foot-note on page 92, he confesses 
a German production in 191 3 of 13,000,000 tons 
of rough lignite in addition to an amount con- 
verted into 21,000,000 tons of briquette, modestly 
adding, "I am not competent to speak on the 

18 259 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

extent to which the loss of coal can be made 
good by the extended use of lignite or by econ- 
omies in its present employment; but some 
authorities believe that Germany may obtain 
substantial compensation for her loss of coal by 
paying more attention to her deposits of lignite." 

He does not spare space in reciting the de- 
liveries of coal that Germany must make — 
always 40,000,000 tons instead of 20,000,000 — 
but he is careful not to call them "options," 
which is what they are, nor does he point out 
that every single ton is to be paid for at the 
German pithead price plus freight to the frontier. 

On page 83 Mr. Keynes attacks the Saar 
settlement as "an act of spoliation and insin- 
cerity," and on page 84 he denounces the Upper 
Silesia arrangement, but on pages 263 and 264, 
far removed from the original accusations, he 
admits that both settlements, with some modi- 
fications, "should hold good." 

His whole attempt is to give the impression 
that the Saar Basin has been annexed by France 
as spoils of war. To quote his exact words in one 
instance, "The French wanted the coal for the 
purpose of working the iron-fields of Lorraine, 
and in the spirit of Bismarck they have taken it." 
As a matter of truth, the district has been trans- 
ferred, not to French sovereignty, but to the con- 
trol of the League of Nations. This method has 
the double advantage that it involves no annexa- 
tion, while it maintains the economic unity of 
the district, important to the interest of the in- 
habitants, and relieves France from entire de- 
pendence on German faith. At the end of 

260 



THE QUESTION OF COAL 

fifteen years the mixed population, which in the 
mean while will have had control of its own local 
affairs under the governing supervision of the 
League of Nations, will have complete freedom 
to decide whether it wishes union with Germany, 
union with France, or the continuance of the 
regime provided for in the treaty. In event 
that the people vote to reunite with Germany, 
the Germans are required to repurchase the mines 
at a figure to be determined by fair appraisal. In 
the mean time, as an answer to Mr. Keynes's 
charge of spoliation, the mines are to be duly 
credited to Germany on the reparation account 
as compensation for the destruction of French 
mines, and as part payment toward the indem- 
nity as a whole. 

These paragraphs were rewritten from the 
first draft, as the Germans made a point of 
the right to repurchase. As a further con- 
cession, Germany is given the right to declare 
the purchase price as a prior charge upon her 
assets. 

Mr. Keynes's estimate of Germany's post-war 
domestic requirements at 110,000,000 tons is 
based, as he frankly admits, "o?j the basis of a 
pre-war efficiency of railways and industry. ^^ As 
a consequence of German destruction, the Euro- 
pean coal situation is the great problem of recon- 
struction. Germany, however, instead of sharing 
in the general privations of which she is the sole 
cause, must be permitted to have a supply of 
coal equal to every pre-war requirement. The 
industries of France, Belgium, Italy, and the 
new states may stand with cold chimneys, but 

261 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

under no circumstances must a German factory 
be allowed to shut down. 

Brushing hypocrisy and misrepresentation 
aside, the facts in the case do not admit of dis- 
tortion. At present the coal production of Ger- 
many, minus the output of the Saar Basin, 
Alsace-Lorraine, and Upper Silesia, is 108,000,000 
tons per year. Of this she is to deliver 20,000,000 
tons to other countries, if the Reparations Com- 
mission decides that she is able to meet this 
requirement. Assuming that the commission 
so decides, this will leave 88,000,000 tons for 
German domestic consumption. It can be seen, 
therefore, that the Germans are left with exactly 
80 per cent, of their pre-war requirements, a far 
larger percentage than is enjoyed by France or 
Italy or Belgium, even if Germany makes de- 
liveries to them in accordance with the treaty 
provisions. Mr. Baruch, answering the question 
as to whether the coal clauses of the treaty 
would work serious injury to Germany, said: 

"No. There seems to be a great misunder- 
standing regarding those clauses. In addition 
to the coal to make up for the loss from France's 
destroyed mines, the only coal Germany is 
required to export to the Allied countries is the 
same amount she exported to them before the 
war, and even this is required only for a limited 
period, and only if it does not interfere with Ger- 
many's industrial life. As a matter of fact there 
are large amounts of coal Germany can mine 
when she gets ready. The trouble with her at 
present is that she won't work. She won't dig 
the coal out of the mines. If the German and 

262 



THE QUESTION OF COAL 

other coal-fields in Europe were being properly 
developed now, Europe would not need coal.'* 

By way of clearing up the whole matter, it 
may be wise to deal in detail with the Saar and 
Upper Silesia settlements. In neither case is 
there even the hint of annexation. As for Upper 
Silesia, the whole question of sovereignty is left 
to a vote of the people themselves. In the mean 
time the province is not in the hands of Poland, 
but remains under the government of an AUied 
commission until the plebiscite. Although Ger- 
many gained title by force of arms, the decision 
of the future is left to the people. If they want 
German rule they can have it. Self-determina- 
tion, however, does not suit Mr. Keynes in the 
case of Upper Silesia, or in any other case where 
there is a chance that Germany will lose. Be- 
cause he knows that the population of Upper 
Silesia is Polish indisputably, he enters the plea 
that "economically it is intensely German; the 
industries of eastern Germany depend upon it 
for their coal, and its loss would be a destructive 
blow at the economic structure of the German 
state.*' And in his "Remedies'* he actually 
advances the suggestion that the Allies should 
attempt to influence the vote by declaring that 
**in their judgment, economic conditions require 
the inclusion of the coal districts in Germany.*' 

Germany's needs and desires are conclusive. 
Poland's rights and Poland's needs are not to be 
considered. After taking a further fling at the 
"bankruptcy and incompetency of the new Polish 
state," Mr. Keynes appeals to prejudice still 

further by stating that **the conditions of life in 

263 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

such matters as sanitation and social legislation 
are incomparably better in Upper Silesia than in 
the adjacent districts of Poland, where similar 
legislation is in its infancy." He forgets to men- 
tion that these were the German assertions and 
that they are disputed at every point by the 
Poles. Nor does he put proper emphasis upon 
the treaty clause that provides in event of the 
vote favoring Poland that Germany shall have 
"the right to purchase mineral products, includ- 
ing coal, free from all export duties or other 
charges or restrictions on exportation, and on 
terms as favorable as are applicable to like 
products sold under similar conditions to pur- 
chasers in Poland or in any other country." 

Coming to the Saar Basin, it is possible to 
quote the printed opinion of Mr. Miller, legal 
adviser to the American Peace delegation. He 
has said: 

The truth is that no arrangement of the treaty is fairer 
or more defensible than the arrangement regarding the 
Saar. The coal situation in Europe is set out in Mr. 
Keynes's book at page 93, particularly in the foot-note. 
The diminished supply in France is due not only to the war, 
to loss of man-power, to the difficulties of transport, but to 
the deliberate destruction by Germany, so far as destruc- 
tion was physically possible, of the French coal-mines at 
Lens and elsewhere. The Saar Basin is on the border of 
France, on its very frontier; the delivery of the coal-mines 
to French ownership for fifteen years is not only an equitable 
way of assuring to France some repletion of her coal-supply, 
but the only physical way of giving her any effective assur- 
ance whatever. Deliveries of coal from Germany may 
prove, as to some extent they have already proved, illusory. 
That France should receive nothing but a hope of coal 
deliveries by Germany, under the circumstances of the coal- 

264 



THE QUESTION OF COAL 

supply of Europe, of her own needs, and of her coal losses 
during the war, would have been so unjust as to be wholly 
indefensible. 

As for the Keynes charge that "the judgment 
of the world has already recognized the transac- 
tion as an act of spoliation and insincerity," 
previous disproofs may well be capsheafed by 
this historical comment from Professor Hazen 
of Columbia: 

In other words, the world recognized that the Allies in 
Paris were robbers and hypocrites, for these are the vulgar 
synonyms for those who engage in spoliation and insincerity. 
When one makes a charge like that there is perhaps some 
obligation to try to prove it. It is significant and it is en- 
tirely characteristic that the only evidence Mr. Keynes 
offers is the argument submitted by the German delegates 
in their reply to the Allies. This argument he accepts 
with approval and without the slightest critical analysis. 
One of the assertions in the German statement is that the 
Saar district has been German for more than a thousand 
years; that for only sixty-eight of those years has it been 
French. This is the classic Pan-German argument, long 
urged with great vigor and iteration, that what belonged 
to the Holy Roman Empire lawfully belonged to the Hohen- 
zollern Empire of 1871 and must not be touched. It has 
been constantly urged in the case of Alsace-Lorraine, and 
the Pan-Germanists of 1914 were ready to apply it to other 
areas that had belonged to the medieval empire. This 
German reply of last May, which Mr. Keynes accepts as 
adequate authority, also says what when in the treaty of 
1 8 14 a small portion of the Saar was retained for France 
the population raised the most energetic opposition and 
demanded "reunion with their German fatherland'*; to 
which they were "related by language, customs, and re- 
ligion," and that this desire was taken into account in the 
following year. No mention is made either in the German 
repl}!^ or in Mr. Keynes's text that there is a literature worthy 
of study which shows that the separation of the Saar from 

265 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

France in 1815 was a typical illustration of the Prussian 
art of land-grabbing and that the alleged great popular 
clamor was the intrigue of a small clique of Germans in- 
terested in feathering their own nests in a mining venture. 

Despite this basis for a just claim to the right 
to annex, the Saar goes to the League of Nations 
for administration, and in fifteen years the peo- 
ple will decide their future by independent 
ballot. A fitting conclusion to the whole coal 
consideration is the following survey by David 
Hunter Miller: 

Let us look at the matter from the point of view of the 
statesmen who framed the treaty. The coal situation in 
Europe was one of great complexity, of great difficulty, and 
of great uncertainty. Nobody could determine exactly 
what would in the years immediately succeeding the treaty 
be an equitable distribution of coal in Europe; Germany 
might have a large surplus of coal for export. Whether 
this would prove to be the case was, of course, unknown, but 
taking into account the transport situation and the coal 
situation generally, nothing could be more just than that 
Germany should contribute this exportable surplus, if she 
had it, both as a payment on the indemnity and at the same 
time as a relief to the economic and physical conditions of 
other peoples. 

The scheme of the treaty followed logically and justly. 
Germany agrees to deliver her exportable surplus up to the 
maximum amount which it could probably reach, approx- 
imately 40,000,000 tons. The treaty itself shows the doubt 
that existed as to the figure being reached or as to any 
figure of exportable surplus being reached. The 40,000,000 
tons of deliveries mentioned in the treaty are "options.** 
All of them are stated to be options, and as to the whole of 
the 40,000,000 tons, and as to any part of them, the Repara- 
tions Commission by majority vote may postpone or cancel 
deliveries if the exercise of the options would interfere "with 
the industrial requirements of Germany.** So, as framed, 

266 



THE QUESTION OF COAL 

the treaty provides, and justly provides, a maximum 
amount of coal which Germany can be required to furnish 
and leaves the actual amount to be determined from time 
to time by a commission charged with the duty of considering 
German needs. 

If it is objected that the treaty might operate unjustly to 
Germany, that the Reparations Commission might be 
arbitrary, the answer is that a deplorable coal situation 
existed in Europe, due to the war, and that no detailed dis- 
tribution for the years to come could justly be fixed in the 
treaty, but had to be left to decision on equitable principles 
in the future. 

But the conclusive answer is the action already taken by 
the Coal Commission, which is for this purpose practically 
the Reparations Commission, in reducing by more than 
50 per cent, the amount of coal to be furnished by Ger- 
many, in promising to give consideration to further reduc- 
tion if German production should decrease, and in limiting 
to 50 or 60 per cent, the amount to be supplied from any 
such future increase. 

The treaty, according to Mr. Keynes, sweeps 
the German mercantile marine from the seas 
for many years to come. It must be admitted 
that this is hardly a fair description of the 
arrangement that compels Germany to turn 
over her own ships to take the place of the 
tonnage ruthlessly destroyed by her submarines 
during the war. The Germans did not seek 
to escape responsibility in this regard and the 
one appeal was for modifications that would 
permit Germany to retain and use her mercan- 
tile marine while she built other ships for the 
Allies. While Mr. Keynes denounces the ship- 
ping provisions of the treaty on page 6y, his 
indignation has spent itself by the time he reaches 
page 261, for under the head of "Remedies** 

267 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

he suggests quite calmly that "the surrender of 
merchant-ships and submarine cables required 
under the treaty, etc., should be reckoned as 
worth the lump sum of ^2,500,000,000, and 
should be deducted" from a lump indemnity of 
$10,000,000,000. 

As showing the erratic quality of his mind, 
on page 174 he says: "Estimating the tonnage 
of German shipping to be taken over under the 
treaty at 4,000,000 gross tons and the average 
value per ton at $150 per ton, the total money 
value involved is $600,000,000." 

Mr. Baruch, asked whether it would be pos- 
sible for Germany to re-establish a mercantile 
marine, made . this answer: "Certainly it is 
possible. It depends partly, however, upon the 
wisdom and generosity of the Allies. The 
ownership of a merchant marine in time of peace 
is not very different from the ownership of raw 
materials. In time of war or blockade we over- 
emphasize their importance because the channels 
through which they move are disrupted. Under 
peaceful conditions both ships and raw mate- 
rials will move naturally to the highest-paying 
market." 

Mr. Keynes, however, insists that, "The 
prosperity of German ports and commerce 
can only revive, it would seem, in proportion 
as she succeeds in bringing under her effective 
influence the merchant marines of Scandinavia 
and of Holland." As Mr. Miller caustically 
comments, "If ports and commerce require 
for their prosperity ships of a particular flag, 
then the United States was without prosperous 

268 



THE QUESTION OF COAL 

ports or important foreign commerce before the 
war. 

In discussing the clauses relating to the river 
system of Germany, Mr. Keynes declares: 
"These are largely unnecessary and are so little 
related to the supposed aims of the Allies that 
their purport is generally unknown. Yet they 
constitute an unprecedented interference with a 
country's domestic arrangements, and are capa- 
ble of being so operated as to take from Germany 
all effective control over her own transport 
system." Whereupon he attacks the plan as 
part of the general policy to "impoverish 
Germany" and to "obstruct her development 
in future." One hesitates to characterize the 
type of mind that can permit itself such state- 
ments. Instead of their purport being "un- 
known," the theory of international river control 
was established in the Allied answer as one of 
the fundamentals of peace, and these great 
principles were asserted: that it was vital to 
the free life of young, landlocked states to have 
secure access to the sea along rivers which are 
navigable through their territory; that if viewed 
according to the discredited doctrine that every 
state is engaged in a desperate struggle for 
ascendancy over its neighbors, no doubt such 
arrangement may be an impediment to the 
artificial strangHng of a rival; but if it be the 
idea that nations are to co-operate in the ways 
of commerce and peace, they are natural and 

Instead of being "unprecedented," even be- 
fore the war an international commission regu- 

269 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

lated the Rhine and the Danube. What the 
Peace Conference did was merely to extend the 
principle not only to other German rivers, but 
to all the rivers of Europe. It is a plan as vast 
as it is commendable to end the autocracies 
of national privilege by internationalizing all the 
great waterways of the Continent so that the 
stream that passes through one nation shall be 
just as free in all its length to the sea as if that 
nation owned the whole of it. 

As a matter of fact, the German counter- 
proposals admitted the wisdom and justice of 
the plan, and objected only on the ground that 
reciprocity was not provided for, although sug- 
gesting various changes and making certain 
demands. The Allied answer stated that re- 
ciprocal rules would be arranged as soon as the 
League of Nations laid down general conventions. 
Concessions were made, however, in a strength- 
ening of the clauses assuring freedom of transit 
across West Prussia to Germany, the increase 
of Germany's representation on the Oder from 
one to three, the representation of Germany 
on the commission to establish a permanent 
status for the Danube, the submission of the 
future Rhine-Danube Canal to the general 
regime of international waterways, and the sup- 
pression of the clauses as to the constructing of 
railroads through Germany and of the Kiel 
Canal Commission. 



\ 



XVIII 

SHANTUNG AND HYPOCRISY 

NOT the President nor supporters of the Peace 
Treaty have ever advanced an opinion that 
the Shantung settlement was ideal, but there has 
been frank admission at all times that a widely 
different arrangement was hoped for and worked 
for. As it stands, however, the agreement with 
relation to Shantung holds out a brighter promise 
to China than has ever before illumined her 
helplessness, for in it is the certainty of protec- 
tion against further despoliation and expHcit 
guaranties that will lead to the restoration of 
lost sovereignties. On the other hand, those 
who preach the treaty's defeat on account of 
the Shantung provision have nothing to offer 
except their false sympathy, and even as they 
cry out their pretended indignation they know 
that their course, if successful, can have no 
other end than the dooming of China to a greater 
hopelessness, a more profound despair. 

Americans, as a whole, are invincibly antago- 
nistic to the Japanese. This disUke, originating 
in California, has been spread by the malign 
activities of demagogic politicians and papers, 
and the general policies of the Japanese govern- 
ment have not helped to bring about a better 
understanding. Militaristic and imperiaUstic, 

271 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the spirit of Japan has rasped the United States 
at every point, and this irritation has closed the 
average mind to any fair consideration of 
issues in which Nippon has a stake. Not one 
citizen in 10,000 knows the details of the Shan- 
tung settlement, or has any exact knowledge 
of the Chinese conditions that led up to it. 
These prejudices and ignorances have fitted 
perfectly into the plans of partizans who have 
banded to defeat the treaty and to discredit 
the President. Their hypocrisy is a matter of 
proof, not assumption, for while the citizens 
may be excused on the score of non-understand- 
ing, the members of the Senate of the United 
States can enter no such plea, for they know, or 
should know, the record of rapacity that has 
been written at China's expense during the last 
quarter of a century. Shantung was the begin- 
ning of spoliation even as it promises to be the 
end. 

The first act in the sordid tragedy of China 
was staged in 1894, when Japan declared war 
under pretense of saving Manchuria from Russian 
domination. The fruit of Japanese victory was 
Port Arthur and the Liao-tung Peninsula, but 
Russia stepped in, backed by France and Ger- 
many, and forced Japan to surrender the terri- 
tory. Tokio exhausted effort to obtain a pledge 
that Russia had no designs upon Manchuria, 
but a treaty to this end was refused, and in 1897 
the Russians effected a virtual occupation. 
The war-ships of the Czar entered the harbor of 
Port Arthur and in April, 1898, it was announced 
that China had granted Russia a lease that was, 

272 



SHANTUNG AND HYPOCRISY 

to all intents, a surrender of Manchurian sover- 
eignty. Port Arthur was fortified, garrisons 
were established, railroads were built, and the 
whole country was treated as a Russian province. 

In 1898 two German missionaries were killed 
by Chinese mobs. Despite the disavowals of 
the Chinese government, and its plain proof 
that the murders were due entirely to an outburst 
of local passion, the Germans invaded China 
with drawn swords under pretense of restoring 
order. By way of gratitude for the Kaiser's 
aid, China was compelled to grant certain con- 
cessions to Germany in Shantung, the lease 
including the seaport of Tsing-Tau and embrac- 
ing the privilege of building a railroad and 
exploiting ore deposits. Senator Hiram John- 
son, more particularly than any other, has 
spared no pains to create the impression that the 
"Shantung question" involves the entire prov- 
ince with its area of 56,000 square miles and its 
population of 38,000,000. The grimy history 
of political debate is without record of any 
greater falsehood. The ceded area covers 117 
square miles and a zone of suzerainty ']G miles — 
a total of 193 square miles — and the population 
of the grant to-day is about 60,000. 

Emboldened by the success of Russia and 
Germany, England seized the port of Wei-Hai- 
Wei and France then took Tonking, with its 
80,000 people. Nothing was left to China but 
Peking, and even there a joint army of occupa- 
tion masqueraded under the name of "legation 
guards." 

William McKinley was President at the time, 

273 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

and John Hay was his Secretary of State, yet 
from America no word of protest went forth 
against the aggressions of Germany, France, 
England, and Russia, but only a warning that 
there must be no interference with America's 
trading rights in China — that the invaders must 
keep an "open door" for American merchandise. 
As long as we were permitted to do business 
in the stolen territories we were wiUing to let 
them be stolen. And not Senator Lodge, nor 
any other Republican leader now prominent 
in the Shantung agitation, hfted his voice to 
cry out against the rape of unhappy China. 

In 1904 came the war betweeen Russia and 
Japan. The peace, it will be remembered, 
was concluded at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 
under the benevolent auspices of President 
Roosevelt, and as a result of the treaty framed 
on American soil Japan took over the Russian 
"leases" in Manchuria, Port Arthur and its 
fortifications, the Chinese Eastern Railroad, and 
Korea. Again no protest was raised, but on the 
contrary press and people commended President 
Roosevelt for his "great achievement" in secur- 
ing a "just peace," and Japan was praised as a 
"noble victor." 

The outbreak of the Great War found Japan 
the ally of England, and without delay she en- 
tered into the fulfilment of her treaty obliga- 
tions, declaring war on Germany on August 23, 
1914. The consideration of tremendous interest 
to the Allies, as a matter of course, was that 
Germany's bases of operations in the Pacific 
should be destroyed, for not only did the German 

274 



SHANTUNG AND HYPOCRISY 

occupation of Shantung forbid the transport of 
troops from Australia, but it gave a position of 
advantage for continual knife-thrusts into Eng- 
land's back. Without delay Japan attacked 
the strong forts of Tsing-Tau, captured them, 
and swept German power from the Pacific. 

In May, 191 5, China signed a solemn agree- 
ment to the effect that she recognized Japan's 
rights to the Shantung leasehold, and would 
assent to any future arrangement effected be- 
tween Japan and Germany. In the spring of 
1917, when Japan's larger participation in the 
war was necessary, England and France signed 
a treaty agreeing to recognize the Japanese claim 
to Shantung, and in 1918 China yielded a similar 
guaranty. 

This, then, was the situation that faced the 
President on April 29th. The ideal arrange- 
ment, as he saw it, was an outright cancelation 
of the Shantung lease in order that the League 
of Nations might build from the beginning on a 
foundation of honor and territorial integrity. A 
variety of things joined to make any such settle- 
ment impossible. In the first place, Japanese 
feeling was already very bitter on account of the 
refusal of the Peace Conference to recognize the 
"equality of the nations and the just treatment 
of their nationals," and this bitterness had ample 
justification. The only excuse for this discrimi- 
nation, as the President frankly explained, was an 
American prejudice, and, while the future might 
remove it, it had to be dealt with as a factor at 
the time. Wounded in their pride, and deeply 
angered by what seemed a breach of faith, the 

19 275 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Japanese insisted that if their claim to the Shan- 
tung concession was to be ignored, they would 
quit the Conference and refuse to sign the Peace 
Treaty. No one was suggesting that either 
England or France should surrender Chinese 
leases. Why, then, should the entire burden of 
sacrifice be placed upon Japan? To consent to 
any such arrangement was tantamount to a 
confession that England and France were to be 
trusted in China, but that Japan was to be 
excluded as an untrustworthy nation. 

As the Japanese delegates pointed out, it was 
not that they were asking anything from China, 
but merely taking over the German lease granted 
by China in 1898, and which still had seventy- 
eight years to run. By an expenditure of blood 
and money they had dispossessed the Germans 
and were now the legal possessors of the lease. 
England, France, and China had affirmed the 
transfer. Under no circumstances would Japan 
allow these treaties to be turned into scraps of 
paper. As has been remarked, Lloyd George 
and Clemenceau informed the President that 
they could not, in common honor, repudiate the 
pledges that they had given to Japan. 

At the very outset the President indulged in 
some very plain speech. Speaking for the 
United States, he refused absolutely to recognize 
the treaties of 191 5 and 191 8 by which China 
agreed to transfer the German rights in Shantung 
to the Japanese. He proved conclusively that 
the signature of China in both instances was 
obtained under threat of war, and he proved 
also that China would have entered the war 

276 



SHANTUNG AND HYPOCRISY 

against Germany in 1914 but for Japan's veto. 
Tokio did not want to see a Chinese army in 
the field, and it was only after America's entrance 
into the world struggle that Japan grudgingly 
consented to let China become a beUigerent. 
Japan, in answer, merely pointed to the fact 
that Spain had ceded Porto Rico and the PhiHp- 
pines to the United States under duress. She 
held up the solemn promise of England and 
France and stated flatly that her delegates 
would leave Paris at once unless her claim to 
Shantung was granted. 

What was the President to do.? It was not 
only the case that Japan was supported at every 
point by the strict letter of international law, 
but it was equally true that there was not one 
single compulsion that could be applied to make 
her consent to a course of which her statesmen 
did not approve. By no means was it a study in 
the abstract. Japan was in actual and absolute 
possession of Shantung, able to enforce her rights 
regardless of any decision of the Peace Confer- 
ence. It was not only the case that the departure 
of the Japanese delegates would defeat the Peace 
Treaty and continue world chaos, but it stood 
plain that China would not be helped in any 
degree. The President, however, met firmness 
with firmness and out of the clash of wills there 
came a decision which, while not ideal, may yet 
stand as one of the most remarkable victories of 
the whole Conference. The President agreed 
that the German lease should be transferred 
without reservation to Japan, while the Japanese 
delegates agreed "to hand back the Shantung 

277 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

peninsula in full sovereignty to China, retaining 
only the economic privileges granted to Germany 
and the right to establish a settlement under the 
usual conditions at Tsing-Tau." All fortifica- 
tions were to be razed, all Japanese troops were 
to be withdrawn, and any poHce force that might 
be needed for the protection of Japanese proper- 
ties was to be recruited from the Chinese popula- 
tion. Where Germany ruled as a sovereign in 
Shantung Japan will operate only as an economic 
concessionnaire, enjoying no rights but the eco- 
nomic and commercial rights that go with its 
lease to operate a railroad and to develop 
mines. 

The President did not stop with this arrange- 
ment. Calling Lloyd George and Clemenceau 
into the council-chamber again, he explained the 
nature of the agreement, and asked flatly 
whether he might expect that England and 
France would follow the laudable example of 
Japan. The two Premiers stated that they were 
willing that the French and English concessions 
should be passed upon by the League of Nations 
and that the President might count upon their 
influence in securing the surrenders necessary to 
restore the territorial integrity of China. 

Those who strike at the Peace Treaty, under 
pretense of friendship and pity for China, are in 
reality the enemies of China. The defeat of the 
treaty will not cancel the Shantung lease or put 
an end to Japanese control of the former German 
holdings. These are things that can be done 
only by force. America would have to take 
arms against Japan, and inasmuch as France and 

278 



SHANTUNG AND HYPOCRISY 

England are in China, these two nations would 
also have to be fought and expelled. It is sig- 
nificant, however, that not a Republican Senator 
has had the courage or honesty to suggest this 
course, for it is not China that they want to help, 
but the President that they want to discredit. 
If the League of Nations does not become a fact, 
with America in it as a champion of fair dealing, 
China has been robbed of her one great chance 
to regain her ravished sovereignty. Japan, re- 
leased from her obligation, will undoubtedly 
treat Shantung as the Germans treated it — 
fortifying, colonizing, expanding — striking always 
deeper into the heart of China. France and 
England, no longer bound by their promises to 
the President, will strengthen their holds in 
China, and the unhappy country will more than 
ever become the prey of strength. 

Only in the ratification of the treaty — only in 
the operation of the League of Nations — is there 
any hope for China. This great tribunal, when 
it is set up, will see to it that Japan stands by her 
bargain, receiving no rights other than as an 
economic concessionnaire, and at the end of her 
lease quitting China entirely. France and Eng- 
land will also be held to their words, and quick 
action may be expected that will either put them 
outside of China or else continue them as mere 
tenants and not aa sovereigns. The whole in- 
tent of Article X is to respect and preserve 
the territorial integrity and political indepen- 
dence of nations, and not only is China to be a 
member of the League, with full power of pro- 
test, but the other nations of the world are at 

279 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

last in a position to voice their own protests 
against the intolerable grievances to which the 
Chinese have been subjected. 

There is no question that Japan will live up to 
her agreement in event of the constitution of a 
League of Nations. Contrary to general opinion, 
Japan, as a nation, has been more scrupulous 
than any other in the observance of treaty 
obligations. Another factor, overlooked by the 
average American, is the existence and increas- 
ing strength of the liberal movement in Japan. 
In the last few years, particularly, democratic 
sentiment has had an amazing growth in the 
Flowery Kingdom, and there is every certainty 
that the military tradition will soon be over- 
thrown. Arbitrary and discriminatory treat- 
ment in the matter of Shantung would have 
caused a revulsion in Japanese feeling, restoring 
the imperialistic party to all of its old power, but 
the League of Nations, with its accent upon 
peace and justice, is virtually a guaranty of 
victory for the forces of liberalism. 

Japan wants the friendship of the world, but 
more than anything else she needs the friendship 
of China. In the opinion of the best informed, 
there is little doubt that Japan will not only 
hold to her agreement, but that she will go even 
farther, perhaps to the length of canceling the 
entire Shantung concession as the first step in 
winning the confidence of the Chinese. 

Whether this is done or whether this is not 
done, the arrangement forced by the President, 
and depending upon the formation of a League 
of Nations, is China's one hope. The only 

280 



SHANTUNG AND HYPOCRISY 

other way is for America to demand the return 
of Shantung under threat of war, and every 
person of intelhgence knows that this is not 
going to be done. 

It is also the case that the President did not 
rest satisfied with the settlement, but proceeded 
at once to put the future of China upon firm 
ground. The representatives of the United 
States, France, Great Britain, and Japan met 
in conference and associated in a consortium 
based upon these principles: 

(a) That no country should attempt to culti- 
vate special spheres of influence; 

(b) That all existing options held by a mem- 
ber of any of the national groups should, so far 
as practicable, be turned into the consortium 
as a whole; 

(c) That the four banking groups of the coun- 
tries in question should act in concert and in an 
effective partnership for the interests of China; 
and 

(d) That the consortium's operations should 
deal primarily with loans to the Chinese Republic 
or to provinces of the Republic, or with loans 
guaranteed or officially having to do with the 
Republic or its provinces, and in each instance 
of a character sufficient to warrant a pubHc issue. 

Here was plain agreement that not only would 
China be protected from spoliation in the future, 
but that the partitions of the past would be 
remedied. Here was an open, honest oflTer of 
financial help — an unselfish concert of nations 
for the purpose of Hfting China out of debt 
and putting her on the road to solvency. 

281 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Emboldened by the position of the Republican 
majority in the Senate, Japan is showing signs 
of a desire to repudiate the consortium, a course 
she would not dare to pursue were the United 
States a member of the League of Nations. It 
is a course that every other nation will com- 
mence to adopt if America persists in with- 
holding her voice and influence. It is not only 
the welfare of China that is being imperiled by 
Senator Lodge and his RepubHcan majority, 
but the hopes of every weak nation in the world. 



XIX 

THE ADRIATIC TANGLE 

THE impregnability of the President's position 
with respect to Fiume is proved absolutely 
by the written record. It may not be seriously 
questioned that the Treaty of London is to be 
considered as a complete statement of Italy's 
war objectives. England and France, facing 
what seemed to be certain defeat, were little 
disposed to quibble over the terms that would 
bring a new ally into the war, especially as the 
rewards that Italy was to receive were entirely 
at the expense of the enemy. What Italy asked 
was the Trentino, as a matter of course, the 
province of Triest, the peninsula of Istria, 
most of Dalmatia, the chief Dalmatian islands, 
and the Dodecannesus. This parceling rectified 
the northern frontier, reclaiming Italian territory 
long held by the Austrians, and also gave Italy 
virtual control of the Adriatic. France and 
England agreed to these demands, and incor- 
porated them into the Treaty of London. No 
one can doubt that the two nations, in their 
extremity, would have granted anything that 
Italy chose to request, and Fiume would have 
been signed over without demur had the city 
been asked for. Instead of that, the ItaUan 

283 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

representatives specifically insisted upon the 
exclusion of Fiume and Spalato. 

Fiume, therefore, was not an Italian objective 
when Italy set down the terms upon which she 
stood ready to enter the war. Nor was Fiume 
in the mind of Italy even at the time of the 
armistice, for on December 2, 191 8, the Italian 
Bureau of Information in Washington issued a 
statement in denial of imperialistic pretensions, 
making this formal reference to Fiume: 

The Treaty of London is the only document supported 
by the Allies in which there are precise promises in favor 
of the Jugoslavic peoples, and these promises were asked 
by Italy before the Allies. Italy, which might have 
egotistically treated only with regard to her own rights, 
has wished, in entering the war, to assure also to the Jugo- 
slavs their rights for a just balance of power in the Adriatic. 

Note 2 attached to Article V of the treaty (of London) 
establishes: 

The following districts upon the Adriatic shall be by 
virtue of the powers of the Entente included in the territory 
of Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro: . . . the entire coast 
of Croatia, the port of Fiume, and the little ports of Nevi 
and of Carlopago. 

This stipulation, as it gives proof of the generous loyalty 
of the Italian people, so it gives the first measure of what 
should be and is a just accord of all rights; of the rights 
of a people such as the Italians, which cannot be renounced. 

If this is not proof enough that Fiume was 
merely an afterthought of certain Italian poli- 
ticians, the record contains other confirmatory 
evidence. Signor Orlando not only held friendly 
conversations in London with Trumbic, the 
Croatian leader, but arranged for a meeting in 
Rome for the purpose of cementing an alliance 

284 



THE ADRIATIC TANGLE 

between Italy and the Jugoslavic peoples. At 
the time Czechoslovaks, Croats, Serbs, and 
Slovenes were fighting under the Italian colors 
in the front-line trenches, and the congress gave 
promise of burying forever the ancient feud 
between Italian and Jugoslav. The action of 
the Jugoslav committee in congratulating Or- 
lando upon the great Piave victory was a fitting 
climax to the projection of the accord. There 
was much talk of the new state that should rise 
from the ruins of Austria-Hungary, and Signor 
Orlando led the dominant group that preached 
the wisdom of a close and co-operative alliance. 
It was this policy, no doubt, that dictated the 
exclusion of Fiume and Spalato from the Treaty 
of London. Orlando saw that the friendship 
of the Balkans would prove of incalculable 
benefit to Italian commerce, while the voluntary 
cession of Italy's rights in Fiume would win 
world approval. 

This statesman-like conception was brought 
to naught by the antagonism of Baron Sonnino, 
Italy's Minister of Foreign Affairs, a diplomat 
brought up in the tradition of Metternich and 
unable to grasp any other political method than 
that of appealing to the basest passions of the 
masses. As though it were his object to isolate 
Italy entirely, this old man shattered the under- 
standing with the new Jugoslavic state, con- 
temptuously rejected the overtures of Greece, 
and set about the disruption of friendly relations 
with France. Fiume was the idea of Sonnino 
and Sonnino alone. The Itahan people knew 
nothing about the demand for weeks, and when 

285 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

it was tentatively suggested to President Wilson 
soon after his arrival in Paris he called Sonnino's 
attention to the fact that Fiume did not figure 
in the Treaty of London and that Italy had 
accepted the Fourteen Points without a single 
reservation. Stubbornly, cleverly, Sonnino swept 
both the President and Orlando to one side, and 
commenced the promotion of the agitation that 
resulted in the resurrection of Italian jingoism 
and D'Annunzio's seizure of Fiume. 

As has been pointed out in a previous chapter, 
never at any time did the President change his 
mind with regard to Fiume. He made his posi- 
tion clear when the matter was first broached in 
Paris, and it was with difficulty that he was 
dissuaded from stating his views to the Italian 
people during his visit in Rome. Italy was to 
receive the Trentino, the province of Triest, 
principal parts of Istria and Dalmatia, the naval 
base at Pola, and other important accessions. 
These were Italian rights and the President 
supported them wholeheartedly. Fiume, how- 
ever, had been promised to the Serbs and the 
Czechoslovaks as their one outlet to the sea, 
and it was a promise that must be kept. His 
statement of April 23d — ^the so-called appeal 
to the Italian people over the heads of Orlando 
and Sonnino — was no more than a public declara- 
tion of the stand that he had held from the very 
beginning. The Italian delegation left Paris on 
April 24th in ostentatious fury, but it was notable 
that the economic representatives remained, con- 
tinuing the daily business of getting money, fuel, 
and raw materials from the United States. 

286 



THE ADRIATIC TANGLE 

The vote of confidence received by Orlando 
on his return to Rome must be regarded as more 
poHtical than popular, for it was not long before 
the Premier and his Cabinet were forced to 
resign. The sane papers of Italy commenced to 
point out that the lunatic insistence upon the 
comparatively insignificant question of Fiume 
had not only lost Italy valuable and necessary 
friendships, but that it had blinded the delega- 
tion to Italy's real necessities. While the battle 
over Fiume was being waged with rage and 
bitterness, not one single intelligent effort had 
been made to forward Italy's economic interests 
by arrangements with regard to finance, coal, 
food, iron, and steel. 

Until the day of his departure, the President 
hoped for an amicable settlement of the Adriatic 
tangle, and persisted in these efforts even after 
his return. Principally as a result of his interest, 
an agreement was reached on December 9, 1919, 
the proposals being signed by Lloyd George and 
Clemenceau, with Frank Polk representing the 
President as a member of the American com- 
mission. There was no question as to the joint 
nature of the note, and even as late as December 
23d Clemenceau made this frank statement 
to the Chamber of Deputies: "The Fiume 
question has been agonizing. Italy promised 
Fiume to the Jugoslavs, but went back on her 
promise. France, England, and the United 
States have sought a solution, and the latest 
indications are that it will finally be reached. 
Only when this is solved can we commence to 
breathe freely." The feature of the settlement 

287 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

was the creation of the free state of Fiume, a 
compromise that safeguarded the Jugoslavic 
interests even as it held a salve for Italian pride. 
In all else the Italian claims were granted even 
beyond the first expectations. 

Shortly afterward the American delegation re- 
turned to the United States, the attitude of the 
Senate making impossible any further stay in 
Paris. On January 6, 1919, Signor Nitti, the 
new Italian Premier, answered the joint note 
of December 9th, making counter-proposals that 
were no more than a restatement of the original 
Sonnino demands. Whereupon Clemenceau and 
Lloyd George, acting in entire independence and 
without even informing the President of the new 
Italian note, met hurriedly on January 9th 
and came to a fresh understanding that repudi- 
ated in every particular their signed agreement 
of December 9th. 

Under this new arrangement, the free state of 
Fiume was cut down to include the city only, 
and a further strip of territory was given to 
Italy in order to connect Fiume with Italian 
Istria; additional islands were ceded to Italy, 
the Jugoslavic city of Zara was recognized as a 
free city, and various other concessions were 
made. By way of appeasing the Jugoslavs, 
they were given permission to step in and take 
a considerable slice of northern Albania, a pro- 
posal that New Europe denounced in these 
terms : 

The Jugoslavs are asked to sacrifice half a million of their 
kinsmen, and to accept as "compensation" — in other words, 
as a shameless bribe — <hose northern districts of Albania 

288 



THE ADRIATIC TANGLE 

which the secret Treaty of London had assigned to them. 
This means that France and Britain have robbed a weak 
ally of its rights in order to meet obligations which they 
had wrongly contracted, and which they are not prepared 
to redeem with their own property; and that they now 
invite their victim to indemnify himself and descend to 
their own level by plundering a still weaker neighbor. 

Premier Nitti, as a matter of course, "con- 
sented," and without more ado Lloyd George 
and Clemenceau sent for the representatives of 
the Jugoslavs and told them that unless they 
accepted the new proposition within four days 
the Treaty of London would be put in force. 
The London Times, describing the scene, states 
that "Pasitch and Trumbic were rated in a 
fashion not usual in diplomacy. They were told 
that discussion could not continue, that if they 
did not give way England and France were going 
not only to apply the Treaty of London, but 
to allow Italy to apply it and apply it in its 
integrity. *That,' said Clemenceau, Ss the al- 
ternative. There is no third course to which it 
is possible to accede.' Lloyd George was *in 
full agreement with Clemenceau." 

These actions, communicated to Washington, 
resulted in a telegram to Ambassador Wallace 
on January 19th, in which it was stated that 
"the United States is being put in the position 
of having the matter disposed of before the 
American point of view can be expressed, as 
apparently M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd 
George have sought only the views of the 
Italian and Jugoslav governments before ascer- 
taining the views of the United States govern- 

289 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

ment.- Is it the intention of the British and 
French governments in the future to dispose of 
the various questions pending in Europe and to 
communicate the results to the government of 
the United States? There are features in 
connection with the proposed Fiume settlement 
which both M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd 
George must realize would not be acceptable 
to the President. As was pointed out by Mr. 
Polk before his departure, the Dalmatian and 
other questions should be taken up through 
regular diplomatic channels, and the fact that 
you are not charged with full powers could have 
no bearing on the question." 

This communication was answered under date 
of January 23 d by a joint cable from Lloyd 
George and Clemenceau in which the two 
Premiers denied any intent to make "a definite 
settlement of the question without obtaining 
the views of the American government." There 
were glib explanations that they had merely pro- 
ceeded upon the theory that it was, best, in view 
of conditions, "to proceed with the negotiations 
as rapidly as possible, and to submit the results 
to the United States government as soon as 
definite conclusions had been reached." The 
answer also protested that "practically every 
important point of the joint memorandum of 
December 19, 1919, remains untouched and has 
now been indorsed by the Prime Minister of 
Italy." In reply the President despatched his 
famous note of February loth, dealing not only 
with Fiume, but setting forth the American 
position with reference to the whole question of 

290 



THE ADRIATIC TANGLE 

European territorial readjustment. Its impor- 
tant passages may well be quoted: 

The President fully shares the view of the French and 
British governments that the future of the world largely 
depends upon the right solution of this question, but he 
cannot believe that a solution containing provisions which 
have already received the well-merited condemnation of 
the French and British governments can in any sense be 
regarded as right. Neither can he share the opinion of 
the French and British governments that the proposals 
contained in their memorandum delivered to the Jugoslav 
representative on January 14th leave untouched practically 
every important point of the joint memorandum of the 
French, British, and American governments of December 
9, 1919, and that only two features undergo alterations, 
and both these alterations are to the positive advantage 
of Jugoslavia. On the contrary, the President is of the 
opinion that the proposal of December 9th has been pro- 
foundly altered to the advantage of improper Italian ob- 
jectives, to the serious injury of the Jugoslav people and 
to the peril of world peace. 



The memorandum of December 9th rejected the device 
of connecting Fiume with Italy by a narrow strip of coast 
territory, as quite unworkable in practice and as involving 
extraordinary complexities as regards customs control, 
coast-guard services, and cognate matters in a territory of 
such unusual configuration. The French and British 
governments, in association with the American government, 
expressed the opinion that "the plan appears to run counter 
to every consideration of geography, economics, and ter- 
ritorial convenience." The American government notes 
that this annexation of Jugoslav territory by Italy is 
nevertheless agreed to by the memorandum of January 14th. 

The memorandum of December 9th rejected Italy's 
demand for the annexation of all of Istria, on the solid 
ground that neither strategic nor economic considerations 
could justify such annexation, and that there remained 
nothing in defense of the proposition save Italy's desire 
20 291 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

for more territory admittedly inhabited by Jugoslavs. 
The French and British governments then expressed their 
cordial approval of the way in which the President had met 
every successive Italian demand for the absorption in Italy 
of territories inhabited by peoples not Italian and not in 
favor of being absorbed, and joined in the opinion that 
"it is neither just nor expedient to annex as the spoils of 
war territories inhabited by an alien race." Yet this un- 
just and inexpedient annexation of all of Istria is provided 
for in the memorandum of January 14th. 

The memorandum of December 9th carefully excluded 
every form of Italian sovereignty over Fiume. The Amer- 
ican government cannot avoid the conclusion that the 
memorandum of January 14th opens the way for Italian 
control of Fiume's foreign affairs, thus introducing a 
measure of Italian sovereignty over, and Italian inter- 
vention in, the only practicable port of a neighboring 
people; and taken in conjunction with the extension of 
Italian territory to the gates of Fiume, paves the way for 
possible future annexation of the port by Italy, in con- 
tradiction of compelling considerations of equity and right. 

The memorandum of December 9th afforded proper pro- 
tection to the vital railway connecting Fiume northward 
with the interior. The memorandum of January 14th 
establishes Italy in dominating military positions close to 
the railway at a number of critical points. 

The memorandum of December 9th maintained in large 
measure the unity of the Albanian state. That of January 
14th partitions the Albanian people, against their vehement 
protests, among three different alien powers. 

The American government, while no less generous in its 
desire to accord to Italy every advantage to which she 
could offer any proper claims, feels that it cannot sacrifice 
the principles for which it entered the war to gratify the 
improper ambitions of one of its associates, or to purchase a 
temporary appearance of calm in the Adriatic at the price 
of a future world conflagration. It is unwilling to recognize 
either an unjust settlement based on a secret treaty the 
terms of which are inconsistent with the new world condi- 

292 



THE ADRIATIC TANGLE 

tions or an unjust settlement arrived at by employing that 
secret treaty as an instrument of coercion. It would wel- 
come any solution of the problem based on a free and un- 
prejudiced consideration of the merits of the controversy, 
or on terms of which the disinterested great powers agreed 
to be just and equitable. Italy, however, has repeatedly 
rejected such resolutions. This government cannot accept 
a settlement the terms of which have been admitted to be 
unwise and unjust, but which it is proposed to grant to 
Italy in view of her persistent refusal to accept any wise 
and just solution. 

It is a time to speak with the utmost frankness. The 
Adriatic issue as it now presents itself raises the fundamental 
question as to whether the American government can on 
any terms co-operate with its European associates in the 
great work of maintaining the peace of the world by remov- 
ing the primary causes of war. This government does not 
doubt its ability to reach amicable understandings with the 
associated governments as to what constitutes equity and 
justice in international dealings, for differences of opinion 
as to the best methods of applying just principles have 
never obscured the vital fact that in the main the several 
governments have entertained the same fundamental con- 
ception of what those principles are. But if substantial 
agreement on what is just and reasonable is not to deter- 
mine international issues, if the country possessing the 
most endurance in pressing its demands rather than the 
country armed with a just cause is to gain the support of 
the powers; if forcible seizure of coveted areas is to be 
permitted and condoned, and is able to receive ultimate 
justification by creating a situation so difficult that decision 
favorable to the aggressor is deemed a practical necessity; 
if deliberately incited ambition is, under the name of 
national sentiment, to be rewarded at the expense of the 
small and the weak; if, in a word, the old order of things 
which brought so many evils on the world is still to prevail — 
then the time is not yet come when this government can 
enter a concert of powers the very existence of which must 
depend upon a new spirit and a new order. The American 
people are willing to share in such high enterprise, but 

293 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND. WILSON 

many among them are fearful lest they be entangled in 
international policies and committed to international ob- 
ligations foreign alike to their ideals and their traditions. 
To commit them to such a policy as that embodied in the 
latest Adriatic proposals, and to obligate them to maintain 
injustice as against the claims of justice, would be to pro- 
vide the most solid ground for such fears. This government 
can undertake no such grave responsibility. 

The President desires to say that if it does not appear 
feasible to secure acceptance of the just and generous 
concessions offered by the British, French, and American 
governments to Italy in the joint memorandum of those 
powers of December 9, 1919, which the President has 
already clearly stated to be the maximum concession that 
the government of the United States can offer, the President 
desires to say that he must take under serious considera- 
tion the withdrawal of the treaty with Germany and the 
agreement between the United States and France of June 
28, 1919, which are now before the Senate and permitting 
the terms of the European settlement to be independently 
established and enforced by the associated governments. 

The devious nature of French diplomacy was 
evidenced again in connection with this cor- 
respondence. Appreciating the fact that secrecy 
could be maintained no longer, and fully realiz- 
ing the moral strength of Wilson's position, the 
French government followed its usual practice of 
presenting the case to the world in the colored 
and distorted form best suited to French pur- 
poses. Instead of giving the notes to the press, 
inspired articles commenced to appear, the ob- 
ject being to gain currency for the impression 
that France and Great Britain and Italy had 
agreed upon a sensible settlement, eminently 
fair to the Jugoslavs, and that this settlement 
had been rudely cast aside by President Wilson 

294 



THE ADRIATIC TANGLE 

under threat of withdrawing entirely from con- 
cern with European affairs. The Echo de Parisy 
mouthpiece of the French Foreign Office, was 
guilty of one great indiscretion, however, when 
it declared, "It is inadmissible that Wilson — 
an autocrat, truly, but an autocrat who is about 
to fall — should be allowed to impose his political 
conceptions upon us when within a year Re- 
publicans will rule in the White House and in all 
probability will immediately denounce all his 
conceptions." 

What else was this but a confession that 
European imperialism looked upon the Repub- 
lican Senate as its ally, and that under the terms 
of this new alliance authority was given to break 
every agreement entered into with President 
Wilson .^ 

Certainly the action of Senator Lodge gave 
them the right to take this position. At one of 
the most critical stages of the controversy he 
sent an open telegram to various ItaHan societies 
in Boston, declaring that Fiume should be handed 
over to Italy, "not only for her own protection, 
but as an essential barrier against any future 
attempt of Germany to attack the rest of the 
world as she did in the recent war.*' Having 
addressed this appeal to the ItaHan vote, he 
then turned about and cajoled the German vote 
by insisting that the United States should make 
a separate peace with Germany zvithout con-' 
ditions of any kind. It was this sort of political 
claptrap, in the United States as well as in 
Rome, that aroused passions that clouded Italian 

intelligence. 

295 



- THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

The publication of the President's note put 
an end to intrigue. Its stirring sentences and 
unanswerable logic forced a quick reconsidera- 
tion of the whole Fiume matter, and the Anglo- 
French reply was a complete backdown. Every 
word was a virtual admission that the settlement 
was nothing more than a hasty, ill-considered 
attempt to adjust a difficulty, and in addition 
there was specific admission that the Albanian 
partition was unfair. The European prp<?s re- 
acted favorably to the new attitude as leading 
"to the only sensible settlement of the dangerous 
and embarrassing position." 

President Wilson, in a note of February 24th, 
explained that he "would, of course, make no 
objection to a settlement mutually agreeable to 
Italy and Jugoslavia regarding their common 
frontier in the Fiume region, provided that such 
an agreement is not made on the basis of com- 
pensations elsewhere at the expense of nationals 
of a third power." And he restated the principle 
on which he stood : 

The President believes it to be the central principle 
fought for in the war that no government or group of 
governments has the right to dispose of the territory or to 
determine the political allegiance of any free people. The 
five great powers, though the government of the United 
States constitutes one of them, have in his conviction no 
more right than had the Austrian government to dispose 
of the free Jugoslavic peoples without the free consent and 
co-operation of those peoples. The President's position is 
that the powers associated against Germany gave final and 
irrefutable proof of their sincerity in the war by writing 
into the Treaty of Versailles Article X of the Covenant 
of the League of Nations, which constitutes an assurance 

296 



THE ADRIATIC TANGLE 

that all the great powers have done what they have com- 
pelled Germany to do — have foregone all territorial aggres- 
sion and all interference with the free political self-deter- 
mination of the peoples of the world. With this principle 
lived up to, permanent peace is secured and the supreme 
object of the recent conflict has been achieved. Justice 
and self-determination have been substituted for aggres- 
sion and political dictation. Without it, there is no security 
for any nation that conscientiously adheres to a non- 
militaristic policy. 

The only possible solution of the Fiume ques- 
tion lies in the friendly and sincere agreement of 
Italy and Jugoslavia, and such an agreement 
will not be reached until the Italian people 
realize that their politicians have led them into 
a quicksand. The Fiume claim was manu- 
factured after the armistice in open defiance of 
solemn pledges, and there is small doubt that 
D'Annunzio's coup had Sonnino's approval, if 
not his complete support. This challenge to 
the Peace Conference, instead of forcing a sur- 
render to the Italian demands, has had only 
the opposite effect, and as a result Italy is 
standing outside the good opinion of the world. 
She has Fiume, by right of force, but against 
this barren victory there are to be placed her 
losses in friendship and material support. No 
nation is more in need of economic reinforce- 
ment, yet the certainty of this aid has been 
thrown away for the sake of a port that Italy 
does not need. 

Under the quick impulsiveness of the Italian 
there is a rare fineness of spirit and a very shrewd 
common sense. When passion has cooled it is 
safe to assume that the people of Italy will return 

297 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

to the original policy of Orlando, working out 
an amicable settlement with the Jugoslavs that 
will safeguard every Italian interest even as it 
will build solid foundations for an accord with 
the Jugoslavic state. This was and is the hope 
of the President. 



XX 

WERE THE FOURTEEN POINTS IGNORED? 

NOTHING is more certain than that the calm 
judgment of the future will bear witness 
to the amazing justice of the Peace Treaty. 
Deliberated at a time when the passions of the 
world ran high, and framed against a back- 
ground of ruin worked by the premeditated 
cruelties of Prussianism, the document is re- 
markable for its exclusion of the spirit of revenge. 
There is severity in it, to be sure, for the thing 
that Germany did called for punishment that 
should stand forever as a lesson and a warning, 
but at every point there are redemptive possi- 
bilities and in every provision there is opportunity 
for the exercise of a wise clemency. The whole 
emphasis of the treaty is upon the future, not 
the past, and in its dream of a new world there 
is a proud place for Germany if her people have 
the vision and the courage to claim it. 

Both courage and vision are lacking as yet. 
Instead of comparing the terms of the Peace 
Conference with the conditions that Prussianism 
would have imposed in the event of victory, the 
German people are still indulging in an orgy 
of self-pity, and not even the propaganda of 
poison with which they deluged the world 
throughout the war was more vigorous than 

299 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the present propaganda of appeaL It may not 
be denied that the effects are being felt in the 
United States. Naturally enough, the great 
mass of Americans of German blood and descent 
are still possessed of their former sympathies, 
and the cry that comes to them from their kindred 
strikes down to the old affections. This fact, 
unfortunately, has been seized upon by politi- 
cians with keen appreciation of the strength of 
the German vote, and no attempt has been 
spared to convince every citizen of Teutonic 
extraction that a savage revenge has been 
inflicted upon the Fatherland. Mr. Hays, chair- 
man of the Republican National Committee, 
once passionate in his fear that President Wilson 
meant to let "the accursed Hun" escape, is now 
leading his party in a chorus of pained expostula- 
tion, and Senator Knox, most clamant in his 
demand for a "hard peace," raises his voice 
to-day only to attack the harshness of the terms 
inflicted upon unhappy Germany. 

To justify their position they now assert that 
the Germans did not surrender unconditionally, 
but laid down their arms under an agreement that 
peace terms should be based upon the Fourteen 
Points of President Wilson, and that this agree- 
ment was "repudiated." It is a comparatively 
safe position, for not one in a thousand remembers 
the Fourteen Points and not one in a hundred 
thousand knows the exact provisions of the Peace 
Treaty. As a consequence of its repetition, the 
great majority of the men and women of the 
United States have come to complete and un- 
questioning acceptance of the falsehood, and even 

300 



WERE THE FOURTEEN POINTS IGNORED? 

among those who approve the peace there is a 
general opinion that the Fourteen Points were 
cast aside. 

This position has the advantage of simpHcity, 
calUng for nothing more than bare assertion. 
Truth, on the other hand, is a thing of detail, 
particularly so in the present instance. The 
Fourteen Points, as a matter of fact, were in 
no sense a definitive practical formula, but a 
broad announcement of principles. As Mr. 
Keynes himself admits, "a large part of the 
addresses is concerned with spirit, purpose, and 
intention, and not with concrete solutions," 
and "it is difficult to apply on a practical basis 
those passages which deal with spirit, purpose, 
and intention." If it were necessary, the gen- 
eralizing nature of the Fourteen Points could be 
used as a shield against attack, but there is no 
such necessity. Taken up one by one, and com- 
pared with the terms of the Peace Treaty, it is 
seen that the Fourteen Points were not only not 
repudiated, but were put into effect as solemnly 
and effectively as though each had been worded 
with the legal precision of a contract. It is a 
comparison that should have been made months 
ago in the interests of information and fairness. 
Considering the famous Points in their order, 
this is the result: 

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which 
there should be no private international understandings 
of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly 
and in the public view. 

The fulfilment of this is found in Article 
XXVIII of the Covenant which reads as fol- 

301 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

lows: "Every treaty or international engage- 
ment entered into hereafter by any Member 
of the League shall be forthwith registered 
with the Secretariat and shall as soon as possi- 
ble be published by it. No such treaty or in- 
ternational engagement shall be binding until 
so registered." This marks the end of "secret 
diplomacy." As the President said in one of 
his speeches: "From this time forth all the 
world is going to know what all the agree- 
ments between nations are. It is going to 
know, not their general character merely, but 
their exact language and contents, because the 
provision of the League is that no treaty shall 
be valid which is not registered with the general 
secretary of the League, and the general secretary 
of the League is instructed to publish it in all 
its details at the earliest possible moment. 
Just as you can go to the court-house and see 
all the mortgages on all the real estate in your 
county, you can go to the general secretariat 
of the League of Nations and find all the mort- 
gages on all the nations. This treaty, in short, 
is a great clearance-house. It is very little short 
of a canceling of the past and an insurance of the 
future." 

2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside 
territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as 
the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international 
action for the enforcement of international covenants. 

Contrary to false assertion, the freedom of the 
seas was not withdrawn from discussion by 
Great Britain. What England insisted upon 

302 



WERE THE FOURTEEN POINTS IGNORED? 

was that the phrase should be defined before 
any agreement was reached. Nor was it possible 
for the Peace Conference to lay down the defini- 
tion. The essence of the "freedom of the seas" 
is that the governance of the seas shall rest 
upon the consent of the governed. Fourteen 
neutral nations were not represented at the Peace 
Conference. These countries are now in the 
League of Nations, and it will be the duty of 
this world court to frame a sea code that will 
forever free the ocean lanes from tyranny and 
obstruction. It will be done and it is the only 
way in which it can be done. 

3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers 
and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions 
among all the nations consenting to the peace and asso- 
ciating themselves for its maintenance. 

The treaty provides specifically for the re- 
moval of duties on German's exports and im- 
ports in many cases where such reduction is 
necessary to her economic rehabilitation. It 
was not "possible" to grant blanket exemptions, 
for the simple reason that while German manu- 
factures continued throughout the war, the 
manufactures of France, Italy, Belgium, and 
England were either crushed outright or partially. 
A certain protection is wise and necessary until 
Allied industries have been restored in some 
degree, but the barriers are temporary, and the 
League of Nations is given full power to put the 
spirit of the third Point into effect. 

4. Adequate guaranties given and taken that national 
armaments will be reduced to the lowest points consistent 
with domestic safety. 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

This pledge is nobly fulfilled in Article VIII 
of the Covenant.^ 

5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjust- 
ment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance 
of the principle that in determining all such questions of 
sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must 
have equal weight with the equitable claims of the govern- 
ment whose title is to be determined. 

This pledge was fulfilled by an abrogation 
of the secret treaty that divided Germany's 
colonial possessions among England, France, and 
Japan. It was one of the President's first battles 
and one of his greatest victories. Lifted out of 
the chattel class, Germany's former colonies 
are now independent entities under the adminis- 
tration and protection of the League of Nations. 

6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a 
settlement of all questions aflfecting Russia as will secure 
the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the 
world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembar- 
rassed opportunity for the independent determination of 
her own political development and national policy and 
assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free 
nations under institutions of her own choosing, and more 
than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she 
may need and may herself desire. 

The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations 
in the months to come will be the acid test of their good 
will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished 
from their own interests, and of their intelligent and un- 
selfish sympathy. 

President Wilson defeated the attempt to use 
armed force for the overthrow of the Bolshevik 

iSee Chapter XXL 



WERE THE FOURTEEN POINTS IGNORED? 

regime, secured the withdrawal of conflict 
troops, protected the territorial integrity of 
Russia against schemes of conquest, and gained 
the adoption of a policy that puts the future of 
Russia in the hands of the Russians themselves. 
As far as the antagonistic policy of Lenin has 
permitted, aid has been given, and when the 
distracted country desires a return to civilized 
intercourse her place in the League of Nations 
is waiting for her, likewise every assistance in 
her economic rehabilitation. 

7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evac- 
uated and restored, without any attempt to limit the 
sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free 
nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve 
to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which 
they have themselves set and determined for the govern- 
ment of their relations with one another. Without this 
healing act the whole structure and validity of interna- 
tional law is forever impaired. 

Is there any question that this has been done? 

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded 
portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia 
in 1 871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has un- 
settled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should 
be righted, in order that peace may once more be made 
secure in the interest of all. 

Is there any question that this has been done? 

9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be 
effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality. 

The Trentino and Triest have been restored 
to Italy, also part of Istria, part of Dalmatia, 

305 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

and various Adriaric islands. Only Fiume has 
been withheld and Fiume was never an Italian 
war objective, but a post-armistice demand. 

10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among 
the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should 
be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous develop- 
ment. 

As the President explained in his note to Ger- 
many on October i8th, this point had undergone 
a radical change. "Since that sentence was 
written and uttered to the Congress of the 
United States," he said, "the government of the 
United States has recognized that a state of 
belligerency exists between the Czechoslovaks 
and the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, 
and that the Czechoslovak National Council 
is a de facto belligerent government clothed 
with proper authority to direct the military and 
political affairs of the Czechoslovaks. It has 
also recognized in the fullest manner the justice 
of the nationalistic aspirations of the Jugoslavs 
for freedom." 

These changes were accepted by the Central 
Powers and became part of the basis of settle- 
ment. As a consequence Czechoslovakia is a 
republic and the Jugoslavic state is pursuing its 
destiny. Galicia and Silesia have had the 
Austrian yoke lifted from them, and the stolen 
portions of Rumania have been restored. 

11. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evac- 
uated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded 
free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the 
several Balkan States to one another determined by friendly 
counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and 

306 



WERE THE FOURTEEN POINTS IGNORED? 

nationality; and international guaranties of the political 
and economic independence and territorial integrity of 
the several Balkan States should be entered into. 

Evacuation has been brought about in full 
degree: Serbia's right to a free and secure access 
to the sea was responsible for the President's 
resistance to the Italian claim to Fiume, and 
Article X in the Covenant of the League of 
Nations gives the promised guaranties of inde- 
pendence and territorial integrity to the new- 
states. 

12. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire 
should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other 
nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be 
assured an undoubted security of life and an absolute 
unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and 
the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free 
passage to the ships and commerce of all nations, under 
international guaranties. 

The Dardanelles are open to the world, and 
every one of the oppressed nationalities is being 
given help that will enable it to come to 
strength and independence. The action of the 
Senate compelled the withdrawal of the United 
States from the further discussion as to the full 
settlement of the Turkish question, and as a 
consequence the exact status of Turkish sover- 
eignty is still undetermined. 

Both British and French governments are of 
the opinion that the Sultan should be permitted 
to keep his hold on Constantinople. Banking 
interests are back of the French demand, while 
the English position is the result of a fear that 
the Mohammedans of India will resent the 
21 307 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

expulsion of the Turk from the holy city of 
Stamboul. The President, however, though 
barred by the Senate from taking any share in 
the debate, has insisted upon American interest 
in the settlement. He is steadfast in his insist- 
ence that the "anomaly of the Turks in Europe 
should cease" and "no arrangement that is made 
can have any permanency unless the vital in- 
terests of Russia in these problems are carefully 
provided for and protected, and unless it is 
understood that Russia, when it has a govern- 
ment recognized by the civilized world, may 
assert its right to be heard in regard to the 
decision now made." A final settlement is yet 
to be reached. 

13. An independent Polish state should be erected which 
should include the territories inhabited by indisputably 
Polish populations, which should be assured a free and 
secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic 
independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed 
by international covenant. 

An independent Poland has been erected, 
and, as in the case of Russia, its future depends 
upon its people. The indisputably Polish parts 
of Galicia and Silesia have been restored and 
plebiscites are planned for districts where the 
ethnic lines are not clearly drawn. Dantzig 
has been made a free city under the administra- 
tion of the League of Nations, and Poland has a 
corridor that leads to the port. 

14. A general association of nations must be formed under 
specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual 
guaranties of political independence and territorial integrity 
to great and small states alike. 

308 



WERE THE FOURTEEN POINTS IGNORED? 

This has been done and forty countries have 
entered the League of Nations. The Central 
Powers, temporarily excluded until they evince 
a wilhngness to fulfil treaty obligations, Mexico, 
banned for very much the same reasons, and the 
United States of America, dragged back by a 
Republican majority in the Senate, are the only 
great states still outside the society of nations. 

Let there be an end to the lie — circulated by 
malignants and accepted by the half-baked — 
that the Fourteen Points were "thrown into the 
discard." Every one of them was written into 
the treaty, and the result will stand for all time 
as a monument to the courage and faith of 
Woodrow Wilson. With the Republican Senate 
demanding a "hard peace" and screaming 
denunciation of the Fourteen Points, and with 
the Premiers of Europe standing like iron for 
the letter of the bond, the President might well 
have surrendered to overwhelming odds, but 
instead of that he fought the fight and conquered. 

The Germans, in their heart of hearts, know 
well that the peace is written in fairer terms 
than they ever expected. Had it not been for 
the attitude of Senator Lodge and his Republi- 
can associates, Germany would have accepted 
the treaty without any large demur, and by 
now would be working back to prosperity and 
the esteem of the world. As it is, she counts 
upon the RepubHcan party to force America 
into a repudiation of the peace, thereby entail- 
ing a confusion, a general weakness, that may 
enable her to escape entirely. 



XXI 

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

BEFORE taking up the tortuous course of the 
poHtical intrigue that resulted in America's 
exclusion from the League of Nations, the inter- 
ests of clarity and understanding may be served 
best by a detailed consideration of the Covenant 
that stirred the Americanism of Republican 
Senators to the depths, or, rather, to the dregs. 
That so short a document, and one so simple, 
should stand confused and distorted in the 
popular mind is at once a bitter commentary 
upon the impudence of politicians and the intel- 
ligence of the citizenship. In view of the pass 
to which the country has been brought by this 
combination of falsehood and ignorance, it were 
well to give national application to the Oregon 
pamphlet law, putting a printed copy of every 
fundamental proposal in the hands of each 
elector for his information and protection. 

The most cursory reading of the Covenant 
of the League of Nations gives the lie to every 
attack made upon it. In no sense is it a super- 
state that has been created, nor yet an inter- 
national legislature. It is, at most, merely an 
international conference for purposes of dis- 
cussion, co-operation, and peace, its powers 

dependent entirely upon the free consent of 

310 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

members. To those confident enough to expect 
that the horrors of the Great War would win 
the nations of the world to a courageous advent- 
ure in real partnership, the outcome is disap- 
pointing, for the Covenant is essentially a cau- 
tious document, instinct with concession to 
precedent and prejudice. It is, however, a 
corner-stone upon which to build, and there is 
always the great hope that the nations of earth, 
realizing eventually the necessity and practica- 
bility of the League, will complete the structure 
in pride and power and glory. Even to-day, 
with all its weaknesses, its careful obeisance to the 
traditions of sovereignty, it stands as the greatest 
aspiration since the cry of the Galilean — human- 
ity's one ladder from the pit. 

The first draft of the Covenant — fruit of weeks 
of consultation, compromise, and revision — was 
published February 14, 1919, and was not only 
referred back to the nations party to the 
Peace Conference, but was also submitted to 
the representatives of thirteen neutral govern- 
ments. President Wilson, for instance, return- 
ing to America, advised with the Foreign Rela- 
tions Committee of the Senate, as well as with 
many leaders of thought, and carried back to 
Paris a large number of suggestions, criticisms, 
and actual amendments. Other delegates acted 
similarly, and the Covenant, vastly revised, was 
adopted unanimously by the representatives of 
the Allied and Associated Powers in plenary 
conference on April 29, 1919. This painstaking 
preparation is reflected in the language and pro- 
visions of the Covenant. 

311 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Article I sets down conditions governing 
admission and withdrawaL The thirty-two Al- 
lied and Associated states and thirteen neutral 
states are regarded as original members, and 
arrangement is made for the future admission 
of the Central Powers and Russia. Any nation 
may withdraw by giving two years' notice, pro- 
vided that "all its international obligations are 
fulfilled," but the question of fulfilment is left 
absolutely to the conscience of the state itself. 

Articles II to VII, inclusive, are concerned en- 
tirely with the organization of the League. There 
is to be a permanent Secretariat, with positions 
equally open to men and women. Geneva is 
selected as the seat, and the membership is 
divided into an Assembly and a Council. In 
the Assembly each nation will have three repre- 
sentatives, but only one vote. It is without 
executive authority, being simply a conference 
body. What power the League possesses is 
vested in a Council of nine, with the United 
States, the British Empire, France, Italy, and 
Japan as permanent members and the other 
four members to be elected by the Assembly. 
Provision is made for the inclusion of Germany 
and Russia in this Council when they are ready 
for membership. 

It is stated explicitly that both Council and 
Assembly shall meet from time to time as 
occasion requires, but that the Council shall 
meet once a year without fail. If the Covenant 
held nothing else, this provision would justify 
its adoption. The Great War demonstrated be- 
yond question that conference between the na- 

312 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

tions of earth is one of the most certain means 
of preventing the international misunderstand- 
ings that lead to war. Heretofore such con- 
ference could not be held except by the voluntary- 
action of all the parties. In July, 1914, Sir 
Edward Gray exhausted effort to bring about a 
meeting of the powers to consider the dispute 
between Austria and Serbia. Germany rejected 
the proposal and World War resulted. Had the 
League of Nations existed at the time, a meeting 
would have been called on the instant and Ger- 
many would have been obliged to attend. Be- 
cause there was no such conference, with its open 
discussion, 7,000,000 dead men fill soldiers' 
graves, 20,000,000 maimed and blinded men 
constitute a world problem, and $200,000,000,000 
— the cost of it all — burdens the back of human- 
ity with debt and despair. 

It is a fact that Germany has admitted that 
Berlin expected Great Britain to keep out of 
the war. If a conference had been held in 19 14, 
Great Britain would have made clear to Germany 
that she meant to stand by her treaty obliga- 
tionis, and the Kaiser would not have dared to 
strike. The regular meetings of the Assembly 
and Council will not only make for peace, but 
they will make for friendship and understanding. 

Article VIII proceeds to the fulfilment of one 
of America's principal war aims, even as it has 
been a world dream. There is frank admission 
that the maintenance of peace requires the reduc- 
tion of national armaments to the lowest point 
consistent with national safety. All members 
of the League agree that they will not conceal 

313 



•THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

military and naval information from one another, 
and that there shall be full and frank inter- 
change of advice as to their military and naval 
programs. The Council is to determine and 
recommend for the consideration of each govern- 
ment what military equipment and armament 
is fair and reasonable in proportion to the scale 
fixed in the general program of disarmament, 
taking into account the geographical situation 
and circumstances of each state. Thereupon 
each state, acting in its own sovereignty and 
according to its own laws, shall consider the 
recommendations of the Council, and decide 
how they can be made effective. 

The weakness of it all lies in the fact that the 
Council can only "recommend." It remains in 
the power of Congress, the House of Commons, 
the Chamber of Deputies, or any other parlia- 
mentary body, to disregard the recommenda- 
tion, plunging the world anew into armament 
competition. There is, however, a force of moral 
opinion that may be depended upon. If, for 
instance, the rest of the world agrees to quit 
the mad business of mortgaging the national 
energy for battle-ships and standing armies, it 
is not conceivable that America will permit 
Congress to upset the program. 

Article VIII also declares against private man- 
ufacture and traffic in the munitions and imple- 
ments of war, and the Council is given authority 
to work out a plan to end the evil. Article IX 
constitutes a permanent commission to advise 
the Council on these matters, and on military, 
naval, and air questions generally. 

314 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

The much-discussed Article X reads as follows: 

The Members of the League undertake to respect and 
preserve as against external aggression the territorial 
integrity and existing political independence of all Mem- 
bers of the League. In case of any such aggression or in 
case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council 
shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall 
be fulfilled. 

In its essence it is nothing more than the 
application of the Monroe Doctrine to the whole 
world. Ever since 1823 the United States has 
said, "We will respect and preserve as against 
external aggression the territorial integrity and 
the political independence of every state in the 
Western Hemisphere." All that Article X does 
is to extend this protection to the new nations 
called into being by the arms and ideals of 
America. As a result of the Great War, Poland, 
Czechoslovakia, the Jugoslavic Federation, and 
scores of other oppressed peoples have come at 
last to a place in the sun. The question that the 
Peace Conference had to face was this: Were 
these young, hopeful states to be left to struggle 
in daily fear of aggression and conquest, or 
were they to be guaranteed the peace that was 
their one hope of successful growth .? There 
was but one answer that could have been given 
in decency and honor, and it is contained in 
Article X. 

Instead of involving America in every Euro- 
pean quarrel, as enemies allege, it is America's 
one chance of keeping out of European quarrels. 
Every great war in history has had its origin 
in the territorial ambitions that strong nations 

315 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

have sought to advance at the expense of weak 
nations. Unless these ambitions are checked, 
America may not know peace any more than 
the rest of the world. When an Austrian prince 
was killed in the unknown city of Sarajevo was 
it dreamed then that his death would call two 
million young Americans to arms? That South 
America, Asia, Africa, and the Orient would be 
compelled to unsheathe the sword .f* There is 
no longer any such thing as isolation for any 
nation. Every quarrel holds the danger of be- 
coming a world quarrel. The one intelligent 
action is to strike at the root of the evil, and this 
is the sole purpose of Article X. For the first 
time in the annals of humanity there is a world 
agreement that one nation will not attempt to 
seize the possessions of another, and the pledge 
is guaranteed by international concert. 

There is no greater lie than that Article X 
impairs the right of an oppressed people to 
rebel or that it abridges the right of a people 
to change their form of government whenever 
they see fit. The word "externar* means just 
what it says. If the populations of India, 
Egypt, and India choose to fight against what , 
they conceive to be tyranny, that is Great 
Britain's business. If the Italians come to pre- 
fer democracy to constitutional monarchy, that 
is Italy's business. Internal revolution has 
nothing to do with the League. It is obvious, 
however, that domestic rebellion may possibly 
affect the peace of the world, and the Covenant, 
while admitting this, also gives a very human 
recognition to the fact that rebellions are never 

316 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

without cause. Article II, therefore, contains a 
paragraph of amazing significance: 

Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting 
any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby de- 
clared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the 
League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and 
effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. In case any 
such emergency should arise the Secretary-General shall on 
request of any Member of the League forthwith summon 
a meeting of the Council. 

It is also declared to be the friendly right of each Mem- 
ber of the League to bring to the attention of the Assembly 
or of the Council any circumstance whatever affecting 
international relations which threaten to disturb inter- 
national peace or the good understanding between nations 
upon which peace depends. 

The closing paragraph was written by the 
President himself and is his method of fulfilling 
America's war pledge that bound us to the rescue 
of the "rights of small nations." Ireland, for 
instance, could not possibly figure at the Peace 
Conference because she was not a territory 
directly affected by the war. Nor can Ireland 
be considered by America to-day under the / 
present diplomatic system. Under Article II, ] 
however, America has the right to appear before . 
the bar of world opinion as counsel for Ireland 
and for any other people whose treatment has 
outraged the American sense of fair play. While 
the various delegations of the Irish, the Hindus, 
and the Egyptians were hstening enchantedly to 
the playing out of their tragedy of futility before 
the Senate in Washington, the President was 
challenging the world with this statement of 
purpose: 

317 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

We can force a nation on the other side of the globe to 
bring to that bar of mankind any wrong that is afoot in 
that part of the world which is likely to affect good under- 
standing between nations, and we can oblige them to show 
cause why it should not be remedied. There is not an 
oppressed people in the world which cannot henceforth 
get a hearing at that forum, and you know what a hearing 
will mean if the cause of those people is just. The one thing 
that those who are doing injustice have most reason to 
dread is publicity and discussion, because if you are chal- 
lenged to give a reason why you are doing a wrong thing 
it has to be an exceedingly good reason, and if you give a 
bad reason you confess judgment and the opinion of man- 
kind goes against you. 

At present what is the state of international law and 
understanding? No nation has the right to call attention 
to anything that does not directly affect its own affairs. 
If it does, it cannot only be told to mind its own business, 
but it risks the cordial relationship between itself and the 
nation whose affairs it draws under discussion; whereas, 
under Article XI the very sensible provision is made that 
the peace of the world transcends all the susceptibilities 
of nations and governments, and that they are obliged to 
consent to discuss and explain anything which does affect 
the understanding between nations. 

Where before, and when before, may I ask some of my 
fellow-countrymen who want a forum upon which to con- 
duct a hopeful agitation, were they ever offered the oppor- 
tunity to bring their case to the judgment of mankind? 
If they are not satisfied with that, their case is not good. 
The only case that you ought to bring with diffidence before 
the great jury of men throughout the world is the case that 
you cannot establish. The only thing I shall ever be afraid 
to see the League of Nations discuss, if the United States 
is concerned, is a case which I can hardly imagine, where 
the United States is wrong, because I have the hopeful and 
confident expectation that whenever a case in which the 
United States is affected is brought to the consideration 
of that great body we need have no nervousness as to the 
elements of the argument so far as we are concerned. The 

318 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

glory of the United States is that it never claimed anything 
to which it was not justly entitled. 

Sir Frederick Pollock, in his valuable work on 
The League of Nations, comments on this privilege 
very pointedly: 

Various Irish writers, including some who deserve serious 
attention, have raised the question whether the standing 
problem of Irish autonomy can come before the League of 
Nations. There is only one way in which this could happen 
— namely, that the government of the United States should 
declare Irish-American sympathy with unsatisfied national- 
ist claims in Ireland to be capable of disturbing good under- 
standing between Great Britain and the United States. 
That is a possible event if a solution is not reached within 
a reasonable time, but it is more likely that a confidential 
intimation from the United States would not only precede 
a formal reference to the Council, but avoid the necessity 
for it. 

Articles XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVT, and 
XVII deal entirely with the fundamental pur- 
pose of the League — that is, the prevention of 
war. Every member of the League solemnly 
agrees that it will never go to war without 
first having done one or another of two things: 
(i) either submitting the matter in dispute to 
arbitration, in which case it promises abso- 
lutely to abide by the verdict, or (2) submit- 
ting it to discussion by the Council of the 
League of Nations, agreeing to place all the 
documents and all the pertinent facts before 
the Council for discussion and publication. The 
Council is to have a maximum of six months in 
which to consider the matter, and if the decision 
is not acceptable, the aggrieved nation further 
agrees that it will wait an additional three 

319 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

months to permit of mediation, conciliation, 
and compromise. Even allowing no time for 
preliminaries, there are nine months of discus- 
sion, not private discussion, not discussion be- 
tween disputants, but discussion between those 
who are disinterested except in the maintenance 
of the peace of the world, and, above all, a dis- 
cussion held in the open for all the world to hear 
and judge. 

A constant and popular attack has been that 
these provisions will bring purely domestic 
questions within the purview of the League. 
The language of the Covenant is explicit : 

Disputes as to the interpretation of a treaty, as to any 
question of international law, as to the existence of any 
fact which if established would constitute a breach of any 
international obligation, or as to the extent and nature of 
the reparation to be made for any such breach, are de- 
clared to be among those which are generally suitable for 
arbitration. 

Mr. Elihu Root wrote this definition himself, 
and the President, carrying it back to Paris, 
had it inserted verbatim. 

In event that any member of the League dis- 
regards the provisions for arbitration and dis- 
cussion it shall be thereby deemed ipso facto to 
have committed an act of war against the other 
members of the League, which undertake im- 
mediately to "subject it to the severance of all 
trade and financial relations, the prohibition 
of all intercourse . . . and the prevention of 
all financial, commercial, or personal intercourse" 
with the Covenant-breaking state. It is the 
economic boycott — a thing more terrible than 

320 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

armies. Not a nation in the world, with the 
possible exception of the United States, could 
endure it for six months. 

In the event of the improbability that the 
economic boycott is not efficacious, the Council 
of the League is empowered to recommend what 
eflFective force the members of the League shall 
severally contribute to the armed force of the 
League in proceeding against the Covenant- 
breaking state. In view of the explicit safe- 
guards placed around this provision, it is incred- 
ible that Republican Senators should dare to 
continue the assertion that the League has the 
power to declare war and to send American 
soldiers to their death in foreign countries. 
It is the right of the Council merely to recom- 
mend. The recommendation must be unani- 
mous, so that the American representative will 
have to concur first of all. It is then referred 
to Congress, in the case of America, and it would 
be for the Senate and the House to approve or 
reject, for it is in Congress alone that the Con- 
stitution vests power to declare war. 

Articles XVIII, XIX, and XX deal a death- 
blow to secret diplomacy. Every treaty and 
international engagement in the future is to be 
registered with the Secretariat for immediate pub- 
lication, and is not to be considered binding until 
so registered. All previous obligations inconsistent 
with the Covenant are abrogated, and there is pro- 
vision for the reconsideration of treaties from time 
to time in order to see that their justice is a con- 
tinuing quality. This also was written by the 
President, and is the method by which he hopes 

321 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

to do away with all the secret, unjust arrange- 
ments of the past that the Peace Conference was 
without power to touch. 

Article XXI excludes the Monroe Doctrine 
from the operation of the League in these ex- 
plicit words, "Nothing in this Covenant shall 
be deemed to affect the vaHdity of international 
engagements such as treaties of arbitration or 
regional understandings, like the Monroe Doc- 
trine, for securing the maintenance of peace." 
Yet this plain language did not suit Senator 
Lodge and his associates, and more than twenty 
reservations were submitted to "protect the 
Monroe Doctrine." 

Article XXII deals with those colonies and ter- 
ritories which, as consequence of war, have ceased 
to be under the sovereignty of the state which 
formerly governed them, and which are inhabited 
by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves. 
The principle is declared that their well-being 
and development form a sacred trust of civiliza- 
tion. Provision is made for putting these peo- 
ples under the protection of advanced powers 
who will be responsible for the administration 
of the territory under conditions which will 
guarantee freedom of conscience or religion, 
subject only to the maintenance of public order 
and morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the 
slave trade, the arms traffic, and the liquor 
traffic, and the prevention of the establishment 
of fortifications or military and naval bases and 
of military training of the natives for other than 
police purposes and the defense of territory, 
and will also secure equal opportunities for the 

322 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

trade and commerce of other members of the 
League. A permanent commission is to be 
constituted to receive and examine the annual 
reports of the Mandatories and to advise the 
Council on all matters relating to the observ- 
ance of the mandates. 

Article XXIII provides for periodic interna- 
tional conferences to secure and maintain fair 
and humane conditions of labor for men, women, 
and children; for the supervision of agreements 
with regard to the traffic in women and children, 
opium and other dangerous drugs; for the general 
supervision of the trade in arms and ammuni- 
tion; to secure and maintain freedom of com- 
munications and of transit and equitable treat- 
ment for commerce; and to take steps in matters 
of international concern for the prevention and 
control of disease. As the President has said 
truly, it is the heart of humanity that beats 
in these noble provisions. For the first time in 
history there is international recognition of the 
rights of those who toil, and an inspiring deter- 
mination to view industry in the Hght of two 
thousand years of Christian progress. 

Article XXIV places under the direction of the 
League all international bureaus already estab- 
lished by general treaties if the parties to such 
treaties consent. Article XXV puts the League 
behind Red Cross organizations, and Article 
XXVI provides that amendments shall take 
effect when ratified by the Council and by a 
majority of the Assembly. Nations are given 
the option of accepting the amendment or with- 
drawing from the League. 

22 323 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Where is there any surrender of sovereignty? 
Where is the necessity for that "Americaniza- 
tion" so passionately demanded by RepubHcan 
Senators? At most the Covenant is no more 
than the subscription of the nations of the world 
to certain principles of conduct that have their 
base in honor, justice, and high aspiration. 
When all is said and done, its powers rest entirely 
upon an appeal to public opinion. 

Nor is it the case that these principles are 
put forward as academic propositions: they are 
already in action. It is no longer a question 
whether any country is for the League or for a 
League. The thing is done: the fact is accom- 
plished. On January lo, 1920, the League of 
Nations came into being and is at work! At 
this time of writing its membership is as fol- 
lows: Argentine, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, 
Brazil, British Empire, Canada, Chile, Colom- 
bia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Greece, 
Guatemala, Italy, Japan, India, Liberia, New 
Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Para- 
guay, Persia, Salvador, Siam, Spain, Sweden, 
Switzerland, South Africa, Uruguay, Venezuela. 

China has joined by ratifying the Austrian 
treaty, and the following four states have applied 
for admission to the League: San Marino, Lux- 
embourg, Iceland, Georgia. Only the United 
States, of all the great nations, holds aloof. 

The League of Nations, therefore, is a going 
concern. The first meeting of the Council was 
held in Paris on January i6th, when the initial 
organization was effected and the Saar Basin 
frontier Commission appointed, A second meet- 

324 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

ing was held on February nth in London, when 
the Council named a governing commission 
for the Saar Basin, a High Commissioner for 
Danzig, accepted the obhgation offered in the 
PoHsh Treaty for the protection of minorities, 
approved plans for the organization of the Per- 
manent Court of International Justice, for free- 
dom of communication and transit, and for the 
International Health Office, and summoned an 
International Finance Conference. The Saar 
Basin Governing Commission, consisting of 
Rault of France, Alfred von Boch of Sarrelouis, 
Major Lambert of Belgium, Count de Molkte 
Hvitfeldt of Denmark, and Waugh of Canada, 
assumed its duties February 26th with a proc- 
lamation to the people notifying them of their 
administration by the League, and will continue 
in office until the plebiscite in 1935 decides the 
permanent fate of the district. 

The High Commissioner of Danzig has already 
proposed plans for a constituent assembly and a 
permanent constitution, and an election has 
been called. 

As a first step for the creation of a permanent 
court of international justice, these world-famous 
jurists were appointed: EHhu Root of the United 
States, Akidzuki of Japan, Altamira of Spain, 
Devilaqua of Brazil, Descamps of Belgium, Drago 
of the Argentine, Fadda of Italy, Fromageot of 
France, Fram of Norway, Loder of Holland, 
PhilHmore of Great Britain, and Vesnitch of 
Jugoslavia. Pending their convening, a special 
committee of experts has brought together all 
the pertinent data and prepared a general scheme. 

325 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

A third meeting of the Council, held in Paris on 
March 13th, approved plans for sending a League 
Commission of Inquiry into Russia and took the 
first steps for the prevention of typhus in Poland. 

A fourth meeting, held in Paris on April 9th, 
answered the request of the Supreme Council 
that the League take a mandate for Armenia 
with the statement that it would assume a 
general oversight, but did not have the necessary 
force to administer the territory directly. 

The Secretariat, a permanent trained interna- 
tional staff chosen for special knowledge rather 
than for nationality, and intrusted with gather- 
ing information, preparing plans, and carrying out 
recommendations, has been organized and divided 
into these sections: Legal, Mandates, Interna- 
tional Health, Transit, International Bureaus, Po- 
litical, Administrative Commissions, Economics, 
Public Information, Financial. 

The International Labor Office is already at 
work under the direction of Albert Thomas of 
France, with a governing body of twenty-four 
representatives of labor and capital drawn from 
the most important industrial states: the Inter- 
national Health Office has been established, and 
the Permanent Commission of Freedom of Com- 
munications and Transit is preparing to call a 
world conference for the purpose of working 
out plans that will put the great highways of 
nature at the disposal of all peoples. Treaties 
are being registered and prepared for publica- 
tion, and, most important of all, the Permanent 
Commission on Disarmament has commenced 
its great work. 

326 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

The budget of the League, as tentatively 
agreed upon, calls for $2,500,000 for the first 
fiscal year, a sum to be divided among the mem- 
bers. Already over half the money has been 
paid in, Canada, for instance, contributing 
$64,000 as her share. And a battle-ship costs 
$15,000,000! 

The question for decision is not, "Shall there 
he a League of Nations?" but, "Shall the United 
States join the League of Nations?" 

It is only a question of months when every 
other nation in the world will be a member of the 
international concert. Germany, Austria, Hun- 
gary, and Russia will undoubtedly be invited to 
join when the assembly meets in September and 
Rumania, the Hedjaz and the Serbs-Croat-Slo- 
vene state will come in with the completion of 
the Turkish treaty. 

Is the United States to stay out and to stand 
alone, denying and defying the aims and aspira- 
tions that we ourselves gave to the world? 



XXII 

HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

THE Senate received the Peace Treaty on 
June lo, 1919. The Senate killed it on 
March 19, 1920. The Paris Conference con- 
sumed less than four months in framing the 
document, and was subjected to daily denuncia- 
tion for its dilatory tactics, Republican leaders 
blaming the President particularly for what they 
professed to consider "criminal delay." The 
Senate took ten months merely to destroy. 
It was time that could have been saved by the 
practice of elementary honesty, for the defeat 
of the treaty was the bitter and unchanging 
resolve of Senator Lodge and his fellow-^partizans 
from the very first. The ten months of haggle 
had no other purpose than the poisoning of the 
public mind by every variety of falsehood, every 
appeal to prejudice that could be devised by 
unscrupulous minds. 

The "round robin" of March 4, 1919, declaring 
the hostility of thirty-seven Republican Senators 
to the League of Nations, no matter what the 
form, was followed by parliamentary moves of a 
nature to guarantee the success of the plot. 
A RepubHcan fiUbuster ended the regular session 
of the Sixty-fifth Congress without the passage 
of a single appropriation bill, leaving every 

328 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

department of government bare of money to 
discharge obligations or to carry on its work. 
This shameless disruption of the pubUc business 
was the method adopted to force the President 
to call a special session, thereby enabling the 
Lodge group to continue its nagging, obstructive 
attack upon the work of the Paris Conference. 
With the government facing bankruptcy, the 
President had no alternative and the Sixty-sixth 
Congress was called in special session on May 
19th. 

Taking advantage of their majority of one, 
for the conviction of Truman Newberry as an 
office-purchaser dismisses him from decent con- 
sideration, the Republicans reorganized the 
Senate with no other view than the discrediting 
of the President and the rejection of the treaty. 
Senator Lodge, whose hatred of Mr. Wilson had 
reached the point of mania, was made chairman 
of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and other 
members of the safe Republican majority were 
Borah, Johnson of California, Brandegee, Fall, 
Knox, Moses, New, Harding, and McCumber. 
All of them, save the last, shared Senator Lodge's 
bitter enmity to the President, and were openly 
and violently opposed to the League of Nations, 
Senator Borah declaring that he would fight it 
even though advocated by the "Saviour of man- 
kind." The treaty, as a matter of course, was 
referred to this committee, and in this hostile 
keeping it remained until September loth, when 
it was finally reported out, burdened down with 
reservations that made ratification a farce. 

Throughout this period neither Senate nor 

329 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

House concerned itself with any other business, 
and the record of Congress may be searched in 
vain for months more empty of service, so utterly 
disregardful of the national welfare. Through- 
out March and April RepubHcan leaders had 
shaken the country with their cries for a special 
session, specifically protesting that they did not 
desire to bother the President, but were merely 
desirous to proceed to the immediate enactment 
of necessary reconstruction legislation. The 
President in his message was at pains to set forth 
the domestic problems that pressed for solution. 
The Republican majority paid as little attention 
to these suggestions as they did to their own 
pledges. Of all the vital questions that pleaded 
for settlement — taxation, the industrial problem, 
the increased cost of living, reclamation bills, 
railroads, army reorganization, the mercantile 
marine — none of these things was carried through 
to any conclusion except the railroad bill, and 
not even that until the last days of February, 
1920, saw the passage of a slipshod measure. 
Casting aside all pretense of interest in any 
program of reconstruction, the Republicans in 
Congress gave themselves enthusiastically to the 
mean besmirckment of America's war achieve- 
ment and the base repudiation of American 
ideals. 

A veritable madness seemed to possess them, 
and each day saw the delivery of blows at 
the very foundation of American unity. The 
forces of hyphenation were boldly called 
into being and no effort was spared to revive 
and exaggerate the divisive prejudices of 

330 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

American life. Professional Germans, silent 
throughout the war for fear of treason charges, 
emerged from retirement, Charles Nagel going 
so far as to issue a pamphlet attacking the 
League of Nations and arguing against the 
return of Alsace-Lorraine to France. Dele- 
gations of Irish, Itahans, Egyptians, Hindus, 
and other races were brought to Washington 
and given elaborate hearings under the false 
assumption that the Senate had power to redress 
their grievances. Than Senator Lodge none 
knew better that the undoubted wrongs of these 
oppressed peoples could be remedied by two 
methods only: either by armed force or by the 
moral pressure of the League of Nations. Since 
it was madness to assume that the United States 
would declare war against Great Britain in 
behalf of Ireland, India, and Egypt, the only 
course was an appeal to the world court provided 
by the Covenant — a court in which America 
would have the right to plead the case of op- 
pressed peoples. Blind with prejudice and pas- 
sion, and urged on at every step by the hypo- 
critical applause of the RepubHcan group, Irish, 
Hindus, and Egyptians deserted the sanities of 
judgment and joined in the attack upon the 
League in which lay their one hope. It is note- 
worthy that not at any time did Senator Lodge 
support any of the numerous proposals to express 
American dissent from EngHsh rule in India or 
Egypt, and when the Democratic Senators, at 
the last moment, introduced a reservation 
declaring for Irish independence, he fought it 
with the utmost vigor. ^ 

331 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

A synopsis of the Peace Treaty was given 
to the world on May 8th, but at the insistent 
request of France and England it was decided 
that the complete document should not receive 
publication until signed by the Germans. This 
synopsis was branded as a *' cheat" by the Re- 
publican Senators, and even when it was seen 
to be a very complete and faithful summary 
there was no word of apology or retraction. 
Day after day the Republican majority played 
the game of European imperialism, denouncing 
the President for his efforts to secure a peace 
of justice and upholding the reactionaries of 
France and England in every contention. On 
June 9th Senator Borah presented a copy of 
the Peace Treaty to the Senate, admitting frankly 
that he had received it from the correspondent 
of the Chicago Tribune^ who had smuggled it into 
the United States from Germany. He justified 
his action by charging that other copies were 
in the country, even intimating that the President 
had permittqi^ the financiers of Wall Street to 
receive these advance copies for their own 
sinister uses. The President by cable demanded 
an instant investigation and these facts were 
developed: that Mr. Thomas W. Lamont, one of 
the financial advisers of the American Peace 
Delegation, had given a copy of the treaty to 
Mr. Henry P. Davison in his capacity as head 
of the Red Cross, and that Mr. Davison, although 
aware that it was to be held in confidence, had 
passed on his copy to Senator Root, and that 
Senator Root, in turn, had given it to Senator 
Lodge. Meanwhile Senator Lodge sat silent 

332 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

throughout Senator Borah's speech in which 
the President was accused of giving advance 
information to Wall Street. 

Germany signed the Peace Treaty on June 
28th and the President returned to America on 
July 8th. He presented the treaty personally to 
the Senate on July nth and placed himself unre- 
servedly at the disposal of the Committee on 
Foreign Relations, virtually asking to be invited 
before it. Senator Lodge and his associates 
sneered at the request, and in order to gain any 
contact at all the President was forced to 
summon individual Senators to the White House. 
After some fifteen or twenty had taken advantage 
of this opportunity to get first-hand information. 
Senator Lodge decided that it would be wise for 
the Committee on Foreign Relations to meet 
with the President, but he managed to delay 
the conference until August 19th. The printed 
report of the meeting shows that the President 
submitted himself to interrogatioxi and cross- 
examination without reserve, going into every 
detail of the treaty and conducting himself with 
the utmost frankness. He recalled that when 
he had consulted with the committee in March, 
taking up with them the first draft of the Cove- 
nant, suggestions and criticism had been asked, 
even urged, in the hope that every objection 
might be brought out into the open. 

Such representative Republicans and public 
men as ex-President Taft, Judge Hughes, and 
Senator Root had also been furnished with 
copies of the Covenant and requested to analyze 
it with a purpose to correct its weaknesses and 

333 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

its faults. Mr. Taft, as a result of his careful 
study, submitted four amendments: (i) that the 
vote of the Council should be unanimous in 
order to safeguard the United States against any 
combination on the part of the other powers; 
(2) exclusion of all domestic questions from the 
purview of the League; (3) explicit provisions 
for withdrawal; (4) revision of the armament 
schedule every five or ten years. 

Judge Hughes joined in the recommendations 
of Mr. Taft and made the further suggestion 
that there should be specific exemption of the 
Monroe Doctrine, also that it should be made 
plain that a nation would not have to accept 
a mandatory without its consent. Mr. Root 
supported the amendments of Mr. Taft and Mr. 
Hughes and proposed these original amendments 
of his own: that subjects suitable for arbitration 
should be clearly defined, that a permanent 
court of international justice should be created, 
and that the guaranty of territorial integrity in 
Article X should run for five years only. 

These amendments, the President explained, 
had been presented to the Peace Conference and 
all but one of them had been accepted without 
question, and were now part of the Covenant. 
The proposal that the guaranty of territorial 
integrity should be limited to five years had been 
rejected on the ground that the matter was 
covered by the provision that gave any nation 
the right to withdraw from the League two 
years after giving notice. In every other respect 
the suggestions of Mr. Taft, Judge Hughes, and 
Senator Root had been followed. 

334 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

The Monroe Doctrine was expressly reserved, 
immigration, tariffs, and naturalization were rec- 
ognized as domestic questions with which the 
League would not deal; not one single recom- 
mendation of the League could become binding 
upon the United States without the formal con- 
sent of Congress; America could not be made a 
mandatory except by congressional act; the 
right of withdrawal at the end of two years 
was absolutely unconditional, the question as to 
whether the nation had fulfilled its international 
obligations being a question for the nation's 
own decision; the provision that the action of the 
Council must rest upon an unanimous vote 
guarded the United States against any danger 
of a combination by other countries; in case of 
attack upon the United States there was no 
question as to our right to defend ourselves 
without reference to the League. 

Answering the charge that the Covenant had 
been interwoven with the Peace Treaty for the 
purpose of forcing the Senate to accept the one 
in order to get the other, he pointed out that the 
execution of the treaty rested entirely upon the 
League machinery. What was asked of Ger- 
many could not be delivered in a day or in a 
month, but stretched over many years. It was 
not merely a question of enforcing the terms, 
but even more a matter of adjusting the terms 
from time to time in the interests of justice 
and restoration. The form of old governments 
had been changed and new ones were established, 
creating intricate problems which called for the 
constant attention of an independent, impartial, 

335 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

and civil body. France, Italy, and England, 
antagonistic to the Covenant at first, had been 
won to its support only when they saw that its 
machinery was indispensable for the continuous 
administration of the treaty. 

It is difficult to understand the attack upon 
the President for his "obstinacy." As directed 
by the Constitution of the United States, he had 
assisted in the preparation of a treaty. When 
he returned from Paris and handed this treaty 
to the Senate his work was concluded. There 
was nothing further for him to do in the matter. 
He could not suggest alterations or agree to 
changes without repudiation of his own signa- 
ture. When his advice was asked he gave it. 
At all times he was willing to accept any reserva- 
tion which did not impair validity or compromise 
integrity. During the conference, and repeatedly 
thereafter, he assured the Senate that it was 
perfectly legitimate to interpret the articles, 
for while he was convinced that their meaning 
was clear, it was their right to make the obvious 
still more obvious. He had no objection what- 
soever to reservations explaining our constitu- 
tional method, declaring that Congress alone 
can declare war or determine the causes or oc- 
casions for war, and that it alone can authorize 
the use of the armed forces of the United States 
on land or on the sea. If they could make 
clearer the intention to reserve the Monroe 
Doctrine he would be glad to have them do it. 
If they could find any more explicit words to 
exempt our domestic affairs from the operation 
of the League, he would welcome them. If they 

336 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

wanted to state that each nation should be the 
judge as to whether its international obHgations 
had been fulfilled, well and good. 

Notwithstanding these explanations, and dis- 
regarding the plain meaning of the Covenant 
itself, the Republican Senators commenced an 
attack that is without parallel for sheer dis- 
honesty. Senator Sherman insisted that the 
whole seat of American government was to be 
transferred to Geneva, and that Congress was 
left without power to pass an appropriation bill 
unless specifically authorized by the Council of the 
League. In one of his outbursts of billingsgate 
he shouted that "history would forget the reign 
of Caligula in the excesses and follies of the 
American government operated under the League 
of Nations by President Wilson and Colonel 
House." The charge was made repeatedly that 
the Council had usurped the right of Congress to 
declare war, and that "one million American 
men would be required to meet the responsi- 
bilities and duties of soldiers in foreign lands." 

Senator Sherman even went so far as to 
attempt to appeal to religious prejudice, insisting 
that "twenty-four of the forty equal votes of the 
Christian nations, members of the League, are 
spiritually dominated by the Vatican." On the 
other hand. Senator Reed of Missouri clamored 
that the black races would rule the world through 
the League of Nations, while Senator Johnson was 
convinced that England would control the earth. 
As these partizan arguments fell of their own 
weight, the attack switched and an outcry arose 
that Great Britain had six votes to America's one, 

337 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

owing to the fact that Canada, AustraUa, New 
Zealand, South Africa, and India were individual 
members of the League of Nations. Not a 
Senator, however, took the trouble to point out 
that the League also included Panama, Cuba, 
Guatemala, Haiti, Liberia, Honduras, and Sal- 
vador, every one of them virtually under control 
of the United States. Nor was it explained that 
all of these countries have membership in the 
Assembly only, a body without executive power. 
In the face of these facts Senator Lodge, Senator 
Lenroot, Senator Johnson, and Senator Reed 
introduced reservations that "the United States 
shall be entitled to cast a number of votes equal 
to that which any member of the League and 
its self-governing dominions, or parts of empire 
in the aggregate, shall be entitled to cast,'* other- 
wise America would refuse to consider itself 
bound by any note. As a result, the friendship 
of Canada changed to bitterness, and the Winni- 
peg Free Press expressed Canadian resentment 
in these words: "They ought to know that 
Canada's actual status in the world is that of a 
nation quite free from external control. Yet 
they persist in their demand that Canada — a 
kindred nation, their nearest neighbor and their 
best customer — should be degraded and put lower 
in the scale of countries than the half-caste 
Greaser republics of the West Indies and Central 
America, which are mostly, in point of fact, 
political and commercial dependencies of the 
United States." 

More than one hundred and sixty reservations 
and amendments were offered from first to last, 

338 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

the whole attempt being to deceive the people 
into believing that the Monroe Doctrine had 
not been protected, that the right of Congress 
to declare war had been taken away, that 
domestic questions had not been exempted, etc., 
etc. This alleged "Americanization'' of the 
treaty, however, was no more than a blind for 
Senator Lodge's real purpose, which was con- 
cealed in the following reservation to Article X: 

The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the 
territorial integrity or political independence of any other 
country or to interfere in controversies between nations — 
whether members of the League or not — under the pro- 
visions of Article X, or to employ the military or naval 
forces of the United States under any article of the treaty 
for any purpose, unless in any particular case the Congress, 
which, under the Constitution, has the sole power to declare 
war or authorize the employment of the military or naval 
forces of the United States, shall by act or joint resolution 
so provide. 

Here was a direct repudiation of responsibility, 
a flat refusal to subscribe to the principles of 
the League, a surly declination to accept any 
obligation of partnership. In its essence it was 
a return to the policy of isolation. If war should 
come. Congress would take notice of the matter, 
deliberate the causes, and in due time decide 
upon a proper course. But as for standing 
shoulder to shoulder with the nations of the 
world in an effort to prevent war — that was un- 
thinkable! What was it to the Senate that new 
nations appealed to us for protection? That 
it was the voice of America that had thrilled 
the world with a call to disarmament and arbitra- 
23 339 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

tion? That the airplane and submarine had 
proved that our supposed "isolation'* was a 
delusion? There was a Democratic President 
to be discredited — a national election to be won! 

The President's tour was a fatal blunder. In 
Paris he had slaved night and day, and the tre- 
mendousness of the strain had told heavily upon 
a constitution already impaired by the drudgeries 
and anxieties of war. Breaking but indomitable, 
he gathered himself together for one last appeal 
to the people, and the effort carried him to the 
grave's edge. In the hour of his collapse the 
Republican press and Senate leaders jeered that 
his illness was a "fake," and when its serious- 
ness became apparent Senator Moses led the 
chorus that the President had suffered a stroke. 
With Woodrow Wilson ill — the one man in 
Washington with the Covenant in his heart 
and soul, as well as on his lips — ^the tragedy of 
political intrigue rushed swiftly to its appointed 
conclusion. 

On November 14th the "knife-thrust" reser- 

^The Chicago Tribune succeeded in enlisting the services of a 
Dr. Arthur Dean Bevan, who did not scruple to declare in a written 
statement that the trouble was "permanent and not a temporary 
condition," and that Mr. Wilson "should under no circumstances 
be permitted to resume the work of such a strenuous position as 
that of President of the United States. The strain and responsi- 
bility of such a position would bring with them the danger of a 
recurrence of such attacks and might hasten a fatal termination." 
On February loth Dr. Hugh H.Young of Johns Hopkins, one of 
the physicians in attendance on the President, declared Mr. Wilson 
to be "organically sound, able-minded and able-bodied, and 
branded current reports as *lies without justification.' . . . The 
President walks sturdily now without assistance and without 
fatigue. And he uses the still slightly impaired arm more and more 
every day. As to his mental vigor, it is simply prodigious. In- 
deed, I think in many ways the President is in better shape than 
before the illness came." 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

vation of Senator Lodge was adopted and the 
seven compromise reservations of Senator Hitch- 
cock were rejected. On November 19th, the 
closing day of the special session, the Republican 
ahgnment was a Macedonian phalanx. Throw- 
ing off disguise, the so-called "mild reserva- 
tionists" stood shoulder to shoulder with the 
outright "nulhfiers,*' and gibed at Hitchcock's 
determined effort to gain a hearing for sub- 
stitute reservations. 

"Leave the door open!" cried the Democratic 
leader. 

"The door is closed," Lodge answered. 

Moving forward with energy and precision, 
the Lodge program swept through, and the 
Treaty of Peace was rejected and a state of war 
continued. Senator Brandegee shouted glee- 
fully that this was the end of "a pipe dream," 
and Senator Lodge announced his determination 
to force the President to negotiate a separate 
treaty of peace with Germany. 

After the Christmas hohdays the Democratic 
Senators, hopeful of compromise, arranged a 
series of bipartizan conferences. The one hun- 
dred and sixty reservations were boiled down 
to fourteen and agreement was reached on all 
but one. Senator Lodge refusing to change so 
much as a comma in his "knife-thrust." Sud- 
denly enough there was announcement from the 
RepubHcan camp that the treaty would be 
called up again on February 17th. There is 
little doubt that this was due to the insistence 
of party leaders, all of whom found themselves 
in a position of exceeding embarrassment. On 

341 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

one side stood the people of the United States, 
sincerely desirous of a League of Nations and 
sick of the interminable Senate wrangle, while 
on the other side there was the painful fact 
that Senator Lodge had committed the party 
against the League of Nations. His hatred of 
Wilson made him impossible of control and his 
position as Senate leader made it impossible 
to repudiate him. The one remaining course, 
therefore, was further discussion in order to 
confuse public opinion. 

On January 31st the debate was punctuated 
by an interruption of amazing significance. 
Lord Grey, arriving in England from his service 
in Washington as British ambassador, wrote 
an open letter to the London Times in which he 
made it plain that Great Britain had no objec- 
tions to the Lodge reservations as a whole. 
What had been confused now stood clear. 
Throughout his adult Hfe Senator Lodge has 
been an ardent supporter of the Anglo-American 
accord, and his attitude on the treaty was at 
once a surprise and a bewilderment. The Grey 
letter came as a key to the puzzle, for it was 
now apparent that Lodge and his group had been 
acting throughout in British interests if not 
under British inspiration. 

No sooner had the President left Paris in 
February, 1919, than the Conference, under the 
direction of Lloyd George and Balfour, pro- 
ceeded to repudiate the agreement of January 
25th that provided for the League of Nations 
as an integral part of the treaty. On March 
4th, the day before the President's sailing, Lodge 

342 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

and thirty-seven Republican Senators signed 
the "round robin" of protest against the inclu- 
sion of the League of Nations in the treaty, 
linking up tightly with the Balfour action in 
Paris. As has been described, the President 
defeated the plot, and the British and French 
imperialists, having failed to destroy the Cove- 
nant as a whole, naturally decided that the next 
best thing was to take out its heart. The Lodge 
reservation to Article X, which guaranteed the 
small nations of the world from annexation 
and plunder, was the method chosen. 

What more could the British Empire ask 
than the refusal of the United States to safe- 
guard the territorial integrity and political 
independence of weak peoples? At its hand, 
waiting to be seized, were the wide stretches of 
Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Hedjaz, and an 
Egyptian protectorate that might well be turned 
into a title in fee simple! America alone had 
the will and the power to block the program of 
imperialism, and the Republican majority stood 
ready to tie America's hands. France was no 
less delighted with the prospect, having the 
Saar Basin and the Rhine Valley in sight, and 
Japan saw in the Lodge reservation an escape 
from its bothersome obligation to abstain from 
Chinese conquest. All the old rapacities, seem- 
ingly laid forever by the adoption of the League 
of Nations Covenant with its solemn promises, 
were restored in all their former virulence by 
the "knife-thrust" that destroyed the guaranty 
of territorial integrity against external aggression. 
It was at the Grey letter, and the whole con- 

343 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

spiracy of the European medievalists, that the 
President struck in his letter of March 8th when 
he said: 

Any reservation which seeks to deprive the League of 
Nations of the force of Article X cuts at the very heart 
and life of the Covenant itself. Any League of Nations 
which does not guarantee as a matter of incontestable 
right the political independence and integrity of each of its 
members might be hardly more than a futile scrap of paper, 
as ineffective in operation as the agreement between Bel- 
gium and Germany which the Germans violated in 1914. 

Article X, as written into the Treaty of Ve sailles, repre- 
sents the renunciation by Great Britain and Japan, which 
before the war had begun to find so many interests in com- 
mon in the Pacific, by France, by Italy — by all the great 
fighting powers of the world, of the old pretensions of politi- 
cal conquest and territorial aggrandizement. It is a new 
doctrine in the world's aflpairs and must be recognized, or 
there is no secure basis for the peace which the whole world 
so longingly desires and so desperately needs. If Article 
X is not adopted and acted upon the governments which 
reject it will, I think, be guilty of bad faith to their people 
whom they induced to make the infinite sacrifices of the 
war by the pledge that they would be fighting to redeem 
the world from the old order of force and aggression. 
• . • • • > • • 

Every imperialistic influence in Europe was hostile to 
the embodiment of Article X in the Covenant of the League 
of Nations, and its defeat now would mark the complete 
consummation of their efforts to nullify the treaty. I hold 
the doctrine of Article X to be the essence of Americanism. 
We cannot repudiate it or weaken it without at the same 
time repudiating our own principles. 

The imperialist wants no League of Nations, but if. In 
response to the universal cry of the masses everywhere, 
there is to be one, he is interested to secure one suited to 
his own purposes, one that will permit him to continue the 
historic game of pawns and peoples — the juggling of prov- 
inces, the old balances of power, and the inevitable wars 

344 



HOW THE TREATY WAS KILLED 

attendant upon these things. The reservation proposed 
would perpetuate the old order. 

Does any one really want to see the old game played 
again ? Can any one really venture to take part in reviving 
the old order? The enemies of a League of Nations have 
by every true instinct centered their efforts against Article 
X, for it is undoubtedly the foundation of the whole struct- 
ure. It is the bulwark, and the only bulwark, of the 
rising democracy of the world against the forces of im- 
perialism and reaction. 

It was a voice crying in the wilderness. The 
Republican majority, secure in the backing of 
the Anglo-American banking interests, counting 
happily upon the revival of pro-Germanism, the 
irritation of the Italians over Fiume, and the 
just but headlong angers of the Irish, were 
committed to their course. Senator Root, tak- 
ing orders as always, swallowed his original 
advocacy of Article X and solemnly urged the 
"Americanization" of the treaty. Mr. Taft, 
after offering a compromise reservation that was 
accepted by the Democrats and as promptly 
rejected by the Lodge group, subsided and 
soon began to purr against the Organization 
knee. 

On March 19th the treaty, with the Lodge 
knife deep in its heart, came up for a final vote, 
and was rejected a second time. 

This was not the end. The final act in the 
drama of treachery remained to be played. In 
early May the RepubHcan majority in the House 
passed a resolution declaring an end to the state 
of war with Germany. On May 1 5th the Re- 
publican majority in the Senate approved a 
peace resolution by Senator Knox ending the 

345 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

state of war with Austria-Hungary as well as 
with Germany. 

Only six months before — in December, 191 8 — 
Senator Cabot Lodge had shouted these words: 
**We cannot make peace in the ordinary way. 
We cannot, in the first place, make peace except 
in company with our allies. It would brand us 
with everlasting dishonor and bring ruin to us 
if we undertook to make a separate peace." 

It is this "everlasting dishonor" that the Knox 
resolution entails; it is this "ruin" that the 
Knox resolution invites. 



XXIII 

THE GREAT AMERICAN TRADITION 

IT is distinctly a question whether the virtues 
of traditions are not outweighed by their 
vices, for while benefits are negative, the injuries 
are positive. Granted that they serve as in- 
centives and standards, it is even more the case 
that they dull the edge of independent action 
and close the mind to the necessities of change. 
There is also the fact that every tradition, at 
some time or other, loses its original meaning 
and becomes a mere incantation. Certainly a 
wise people will never disregard the lessons and 
experiences of the past, but their wisdom will 
put equal emphasis on the importance of studying 
every new question in the light of progress. 

The principal argument against the League 
of Nations, and the one having greatest weight 
with the average citizen who has a worship of 
names rather than a respect for facts, is the 
constant assertion that Washington, in his 
Farewell Address, warned the people of the United 
States against "entanghng aUiances." As a 
matter of fact, the phrase was coined by Thomas 
Jefferson in his inaugural speech in 1800. By 
way of proving that the author himself did not 
regard it as an inflexible rule of conduct, Jeffer- 
son was willing to "marry the British fleet" in 

347 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

1802 and urged an offensive and defensive alli- 
ance with Great Britain in 1823. 

Throughout the trying days of the American 
Revolution there was no fear as to the dangers 
of "entangling alliances." The embattled Col- 
onies asked help wherever they thought that 
they could get it, and the request was not based 
upon any appeal to selfishness, but upon the 
broad ground that a triumph for popular govern- 
ment in America would react beneficially upon 
European institutions. Franklin in France and 
Adams in Holland specialized in this type of 
pleading, and the alliance with the French in 
1778 was brought about by love of liberty rather 
than by any hope of material gain. 

The first stages of the French Revolution 
evoked only sympathy and enthusiasm in the 
United States, but as moderate leaders were 
overthrown and Paris ran red with blood, senti- 
ment changed radically. As Washington saw 
it from where he sat, democracy had ceased, 
leaving anarchy as a threat. When France 
went to war with England in 1793 she sent 
Genet to the United States to demand a fulfil- 
ment of our treaty obligations. Hamilton, 
always British in his sympathies, argued that 
the alliance had been made with Louis XVI 
and that the dethronement of the king canceled 
the contract. Jefferson, on the other hand, 
insisted that the treaty was between the two 
nations, and that honor demanded a scrupulous 
adherence to our pledges. The logic of Jeffer- 
son's contention has long since been conceded, 
and there is no question that the proclamation 

348 



THE GREAT AMERICAN TRADITION 

of neutrality was a repudiation of our bargain. 
Washington, however, justified it on the theory 
that the alHance was defensive only, but his 
principal argument was based upon our "de- 
tached and distant situation.*' What he de- 
clared then, and what he set forth in detail 
in his Farewell Address, was a policy of isolation. 
His words were these: "Europe has a set of 
primary interests which to us have none or a 
very remote relation. Hence she must be en- 
gaged in frequent controversies, the causes of 
which are essentially foreign to our concerns. 
Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to 
implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the 
ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the 
ordinary combinations and collisions of her 
friendships or enmities. Our detached and dis- 
tant situation invites and enables us to pursue 
a diflTerent course. . , . Why forego the advantages 
of so peculiar a situation?" 

Will it be said that the conditions described 
by Washington remain unchanged? That fast 
boats, the cable, the wireless, the airplane, and 
the submarine have left untouched our "de- 
tached and distant situation"? Washington 
also warned against "the spirit of innovation" 
and "dangerous experiments." Why not con- 
strue them as declarations against the incan- 
descent light, steamships, aircraft, and railroads? 

As a matter of fact, the words of Washington's 
Farewell Address had barely ceased to echo 
before events proved that America's "detached 
and distant situation" was more imaginary than 
real. In less than twelve years we were com- 

349 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

pelled to enter upon three wars with trans- 
atlantic peoples — France, the Barbary pirates, 
and England. When Napoleon forced Spain to 
cede Louisiana to France, and launched his ill- 
fated expedition against Santo Domingo, Presi- 
dent Jefferson expressed his willingness to "marry 
ourselves to the British fleet and nation," if such 
action should be necessary to guard the New 
World against imperialism. 

Instead of minding their own business the 
fathers never lost an opportunity to declare in 
favor of democratic movements, no matter in 
what part of the world. Washington, receiving 
the colors of the French, said, "My anxious 
recollections, my sympathetic feeling, and my 
best wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever, 
in any country, I see an oppressed nation unfurl 
the banner of freedom." 

President Monroe, in his annual message to 
Congress in 1822, specifically referred to Amer- 
ican sympathy for the Greek revolt against 
Turkish tyranny, and also spoke boldly of our 
interest in the revolutionary movements in 
Spain, Italy, and Portugal. The crushing of 
these democratic uprisings by the Holy Alliance 
aroused our indignation and protest, and as a 
consequence of our apprehensions, entangling 
alliances were not only considered, but seriously 
proposed. When the Holy AUiance resolved to 
re-establish Spain's despotic control over her 
South American colonies President Monroe 
called upon Jeff'erson and Madison for advice 
in the crisis, and the correspondence is rich in 
illumination for those modern statesmen who 

350 



THE GREAT AMERICAN TRADITION 

insist that the fathers were parochial in their 
outlook. In order to check the spread of 
imperiahsm to the New World, Jefferson was 
willing to enter into an alliance with Great 
Britain, urging that it would "prevent instead 
of provoking war." Madison went even farther 
in his consideration of the world as a whole. 
It was his idea that America and Great Britain 
should stand together in support of free govern- 
ment everywherey declaring in favor of the Greek 
cause and expressing "avowed disapprobation" 
with respect to the ruthless policy of the Holy 
AlHance in Spain. As he stated flatly in a letter 
to Jefferson, "With the British power and navy 
combined with our own we have nothing to fear 
from the rest of the world, and in the great 
struggle of the epoch between liberty and 
despotism we owe it to ourselves to sustain 
the former in this hemisphere at least." Under 
the influence of John Quincy Adams, his Secretary 
of State, President Monroe dissented from the 
suggestions of Jefferson and Madison, and 
decided upon an independent declaration against 
European interference in the affairs of the New 
World. The argument of Adams was based 
upon the fear that an English alliance might tie 
America's hands in the acquisition of Louisiana, 
also on the sure knowledge that the British fleet 
would back up the declaration anyway. 

As early as 1824 the policy of isolation was 
openly recognized as a thing of the past. Daniel 
Webster, then Secretary of State, urged the 
appointment of a commissioner to Greece and 
made the following statement as to American 

351 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

policy in words that might have been written 
to-day in support of the League of Nations: 

As one of the free states among the nations, as a great 
and rapidly rising Republic, it would be impossible for us, 
if we were so disposed, to prevent our principles, our senti- 
ments, and our example from producing some effect upon 
the opinions and hopes of society throughout the civilized 
world . . . the great political question of this age is that 
between absolute and regulated governments . . . whether 
society shall have any part in its own government . . . our 
side of this question is settled for us even without our 
volition . . . our place is on the side of free institutions. 

It may now be required of me to show what interest we 
have in resisting this new system. What is it to us, it may 
be asked, upon what piinciples or what pretenses the 
European governments assert a right of interfering in the 
affairs of their neighbors? The thunder, it may be said, 
rolls at a distance. The wide Atlantic is between us and 
danger; and, however others may suffer, we shall remain safe. 

I think it is a sufficient answer to this to say that we are 
one of the nations of the earth; that we have an interest, 
therefore, in the preservation of that system of national law 
and national intercourse which has heretofore subsisted so 
beneficially for us all. . . . The enterprising character of 
the age, our own active, commercial spirit, the great increase 
which has taken place in the intercourse among civilized 
and commercial states, have necessarily connected us with 
other nations and given us a high concern in the preservation 
of those salutary principles upon which that intercourse is 
founded. We have as clear an interest in international 
law as individuals have in the laws of society. 

When the liberal thought of Europe rose in 
revolt against the theory of divine right America 
did not sit idly by, but took an active and 
decisive part in encouraging the revolutionary 
movement. No sooner had the representatives 
of the various German states met at Frankfort 

352 



THE GREAT AMERICAN TRADITION 

to form a new government than Mr. Donelson, 
our Minister in Berlin, was ordered by the Presi- 
dent "to proceed to Frankfort and there, as 
the diplomatic representative of the United 
States, recognize the provisional government of 
the new German confederation; provided you 
shall find such a government in successful 
operation." These instructions were issued on 
July 24, 1848, and in August of that year Donel- 
son was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary to the Frankfort gov- 
ernment. In 1849 Mr. Donelson received fur- 
ther an even more authoritative instruction, and 
the following passage will show America's faith: 

From what intelligence we have been enabled to gather 
on this side of the Atlantic we understand that there are, 
at this time, two parties in Germany, each seeking to 
establish a constitution for a Germanic Empire; and that 
the essential diflPerence between them consists in this — 
that one of them desires to form a constitution which has 
for its basis a recognition of the principle that the people 
are the true source of all power; and the other, a constitution 
based on the despotic principle that kings hold their power 
by divine right, and that the constitutions to be established 
under their auspices are boons granted to the people, by 
them, as the only legitimate sources of power. It is hardly 
necessary for me to say to you that all the sympathies of the 
government and the people of the United States are with 
the former party. 

Louis Kossuth, coming to the United States in 
1849, stirred Americans to intense sympathy 
with the Hungarian revolt against Austrian 
absolutism, and President Taylor even went 
so far as to appoint a special agent with authority 
to recognize the independence of the Hungarian 

353 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

state "in event of her ability to sustain it." 
When the Hungarian rebels were crushed Presi- 
dent Fillmore approved a joint resolution of 
Congress, passed March 3, 1851, declaring the 
sympathy of the people of the United States 
with Kossuth and his associates, and authorizing 
"the employment of some of the public vessels 
which may be now cruising in the Mediterranean 
to receive and convey to the said United States 
the said Louis Kossuth and his associates in 
captivity." An American ship, proceeding to 
Turkey, rescued Kossuth and his fellow-exiles, 
and on their arrival in the United States they 
were formally received by the President and by 
Congress, and were the guests of honor at a great 
official dinner. The Austrian government en- 
tered vigorous protest against these various 
breaches of neutrality, but the reply of Webster 
contained no single word of regret or apology, 
and transgressed every rule of diplomatic cor- 
respondence in its bold assertion of American 
interest in popular government. 

In 1870, when the French Republic came into 
being for the third time, President Grant cabled 
instructions to recognize it instantly and to con- 
gratulate the French people on restoring a 
government "disconnected with the dynastic 
traditions of Europe." 

More and more, as time went by, the policy of 
isolation was disregarded as occasion demanded, 
although still retaining its hold upon the Amer- 
ican imagination. Liberia, the negro republic 
in Africa, was founded by the Colonization 
Society of the United States, and was and is, 

354 



THE GREAT AMERICAN TRADITION 

to all effect, an American protectorate. In 1884 
we sent delegates to an international conference 
in Berlin to put firmer foundations under the 
Congo Free State, and in 1890 the United States 
took part in another conference of world powers 
at Brussels for the prevention of the Central 
African slave traffic. 

In 1900 American troops joined with those of 
England, France, Russia, and Japan in the 
suppression of the Boxer uprising and shared 
in the joint occupation of Peking. Had we had 
the courage then to assert ourselves as a world 
power, with a definite stake in world peace and 
justice, China would not have been partitioned 
and a new order might have been inaugurated. 
As it was, we contented ourselves with a bom- 
bastic assertion of interest in China's "territorial 
and administrative entity," and then retired to 
our "detached and distant situation" while the 
other powers looted and annexed. 

In 1906 President Roosevelt sent Mr. Henry- 
White to serve as America's representative at 
the Algeciras conference, called by the Kaiser 
to dispute French control in Morocco. The 
United States was absolutely without direct 
interest in Moroccan affairs, and our participa- 
tion had no other purpose than the preservation 
of the European balance of power. Even at that 
time the Kaiser was eager for war with France, 
and under President Roosevelt's instruction 
America took her place by the side of England, 
Italy, and France in serving notice that the 
peace must be kept. At every point the ac- 
tion was in flat violation of the policy of isola- 
24 355 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

tlon and an intelligent acceptance of changed 
conditions. 

At various times, and always pointedly, we 
have protested against the treatment of Jews, 
Armenians, and other oppressed peoples, risking 
diplomatic ruptures with Rumania, Russia, and 
Turkey, and no outcry was raised when the 
United States met with other world powers 
at The Hague in 1899 to work out a program of 
peace. Even while politicians were mouthing 
the words of Washington international co-opera- 
tion was progressing by leaps and bounds, and 
in 1914 the peoples of the world were banded 
together in these activities: the Universal Postal 
Union, the International Radio-Telegraphic Bu- 
reau, the Danube and Suez Canal Com.mission, 
the International Office of Public Health, the 
Union for the Publication of Customs Tariffs, 
the Sugar Commission, the International In- 
stitute of Agriculture, the International Union 
for the Protection of Industrial Property, the 
International Bureau at Zanzibar for the Repres- 
sion of the Slave Traffic, as well as in sanitary 
councils and various monetary and metric unions. 

It remained for the Great War, however, to 
shatter forever the fantastic theory that we were 
still living in the days of the Colonies, with sailing- 
craft as the only means of transatlantic communi- 
cation. From the first our "detached and dis- 
tant situation" was an absurdity disproved by 
British Orders in Council primarily, and then out- 
raged by the unrestricted operations of the 
German U-boats. For three and a half years 
we clung to the rags of an outworn policy before 

356 



THE GREAT AMERICAN TRADITION 

daring to face facts. The question to be decided 
to-day is whether we are to face the future with 
open eyes or resume the bandages of tradition. 
Washington's words in opposition to perma- 
nent alliances with other countries are quoted 
continually, but Httle indeed is said about other 
portions of the Farewell Address that explain 
and qualify. For instance, there is this passage: 

With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor 
to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet 
recent institutions, and to progress, without interruption, 
to that degree of strength and consistency which is neces- 
sary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own 
fortunes. 

And again; pointing out the benefits of the 
union of the thirteen states: 

What is of inestimable value, they must derive from 
union an exemption from those broils and wars between 
themselves which so frequently afflict neighboring countries 
not tied together by the same government. . . . Here, like- 
wise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown 
military establishments which under any form of govern- 
ment are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be 
regarded as peculiarly hostile to republican liberty. . . . 
Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace 
so large a sphere.^ Let experience solve it. To listen to 
mere speculation in such a case were criminal. . . . The ex- 
periment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment 
which ennobles human nature. 

It will thus be seen that permanent isolation 
was not in Washington's mind, and that his 
vision swept the future and saw the enormous 
benefits of union. Just as his soul sickened at 
the sight of nations banding in selfish groups for 

357 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

the attainment of mean objectives or to secure 
protection against rapacity, so did it leap to the 
dream of a great fraternity. Neither isolation 
nor neutrality was his end, but merely the 
means. Peace was his goal, and were he alive 
to-day, looking out over a country grown to a 
population of 110,000,000, seeing the guardian 
oceans bridged by modern science, and hearing 
the supplication of war-sick nations, pleading for 
a universal alliance in the interests of disarma- 
ment and peace, can there be any doubt as to 
his decision? 



CONCLUSION 

EVERY fact in the case has the clearness 
of crystal. 

America did not take arms to avenge Belgium 
or in repayment of any debt of gratitude to 
France or as a duty demanded by the peril of 
civilization. Our entrance into the Great War 
was compelled by the sound instinct of self- 
preservation. We fought for ourselves^ for our 
institutions, for our right to life, hberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness in accordance with our 
own desires and definitions. 

It required three and a half years of violated 
neutrality to tear the bandages of tradition 
from our eyes, but when the wrappings were 
finally removed we saw that America's "de- 
tached and distant situation" had never been 
more than a vain hope. Just as the murder of 
an Austrian archduke in an obscure Balkan 
town was turning the United States into a vast 
military camp, so had we been drawn into every 
world war of the past, and so would we be 
drawn with equal inevitability into every world 
war of the future. 

The vision of the President shot Hght through 
the gathering darkness. If forty-eight sovereign 
states, each with its diverse interests, were able 
to live in friendly and profitable union, why not 
the several nations of the world? What end 

359 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

was served by armaments that could not be 
better served by arbitration and adjudication? 
To such a tremendous simpHcity were all of his 
proposals reducible. 

The whole world, sick of the dog-eat-dog 
tradition, rose in gladness at his call. Every- 
where people looked with new eyes upon the 
horror of destruction that laid Europe waste, 
and saw it as the logical consequence of their 
tribal hates and superstitions. The voice of the 
Nazarene, ringing ineffectually through two 
thousand years, was heard at last, and deeps of 
fraternity were stirred. 

The Allied governments accepted the prin- 
ciples of the League of Nations as though they 
had been handed down from Sinai, and the 
thundering ideals of the President imparted a 
sublime militancy to the invincible pacifism of 
America. A war against war! Mothers gave 
their sons that the dream might be made to 
come true, and men went to death with a new 
courage. Shouted as a great slogan, it reached 
the deluded peoples of the Central Powers, under- 
mining the structure of fears and Hes that kept 
their hearts in shadow. The collapse of the 
Prussian war machine was not physical only, 
but a sheer spiritual disintegration. 

In the hour of victory the President went to 
Paris, a decision forced upon him both by the 
Constitution and his conscience. He had laid 
down the principles that enemy and Allies alike 
were now accepting as the terms of the peace, 
and they called for interpretations that he alone 
had the right and the power to make. Before his 

360 



CONCLUSION 

ship was well at sea a program of repudiation 
was under way. The Republican majority in 
the Senate, concerned only with officeholding 
and office-seeking, set about his ruin, careless 
of hurt to the nation. 

The President sailed to frame a peace of 
justice, to lay the foundations of a new world 
order in which the sanities of discussion should 
replace the brutalities of bloodshed. The Senate 
snarled that the peace must be "hard" and that 
the League of Nations was a "visionary project" 
that should be left to the future. The President 
was denounced as one without authority to 
speak for America, and the Senate placed itself 
at the disposal of the Allies for the ratification 
of any treaty that they chose to make. 

The imperialists of Europe, reviving at this 
offer of partnership, hastily substituted knives 
for palm branches. Instead of a conference of 
comrades, thinking in terms of the New Day, 
the President found a clique of enemies thinking 
in the old terms of balanced power and secret 
diplomacy. He fought them and he beat them. 
Without help from a single source, betrayed at 
home and ambushed abroad, ringed about with 
foes and deserted by a world returned to its 
selfish personal preoccupations, he won. 

In its essence the Peace Treaty marks man- 
kind's greatest victory over the baser emotions. 
Its angers and greeds are matters of word and 
gesture rather than defined intent, and wait 

361 



t 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

merely for a calmer mood to be wiped out en- 
tirely. The Covenant of the League of Nations 
lacks much of the virility that was hoped, but 
in its solemn agreements are provisions for dis- 
armament, arbitration, open dealing, and respect 
for the territorial integrity and political inde- 
pendence of weak peoples. Frail enough in all 
seeming, but still a ladder from the quicksands 
to the heights. 

For ten months the Republican majority held 
the treaty in its hostile keeping. For ten months 
the politicians avoided discussion of the Cove- 
nant's noble purposes, confining themselves to the 
meannesses of misrepresentation and distortion. 
Where once a Webster, a Clay, and a Calhoun de- 
bated great issues in conscience and high ability 
there was the squabble of hucksters. And at last 
the definite repudiation of every war aim, every 
ideal, every hope for which mothers gave their 
sons, for which youth died or lived to know the 
disfigurements that are worse than death. 

With what result? 

The world that loved us now hates us. We 
hate ourselves. The unity that was our pride 
has been torn into tatters by the pull and haul 
of a revived and multiplied hyphenation. The 
voice of America is a polyglot screech, every 
separate blood strain chorusing some hymn of 
passion under the leadership of this or that 
political group. A war record unparalleled for 
courage, initiative, nobility, and utter unselfish- 
ness has been dragged through the gutters of 

362 



CONCLUSION 

abuse and slander. The shame of it, the sadness 
of it all, is relieved by no ray of Hght. 

The Republican party, as it stands at present, 
represents the lowest form of political life. Those 
once fought against so nobly by an outraged rank 
and file are in despotic control and the "lions" of 
191 2 are now jackals hopeful of scraps. Babbling 
about "poor Germany" where a year before it 
hurled obscene hatred at the "accursed Hun," 
taking money from Anglo-American banking 
interests one moment and wheedling Irish- 
Americans the next, crying out against the czar- 
ism of Palmer even while it applauds the "Sail 
or Shoot" program of Wood, yelling Ameri- 
canism and indefatigably fanning the angers of 
Italians and Greeks and Germans, cheering a 
Sims as he shames the war record of the navy 
of the United States, and sneering at every 
military achievement of America, preaching a 
gospel of provincialism and repudiation in the 
interests of a high-tarifF and ship-subsidy policy 
— the Republican organization has the touch 
of some poisonous nettle, bringing a rash wher- 
ever it touches. Drunk with a conviction of 
triumph, lavish with miUions collected from 
war profiteers, the party of Lincoln lurches to 
the election without other standards, principles, 
or ideals than the division of spoils. The per- 
sonal platforms of its candidates range from 
demagoguery to rankest reaction, from an absurd 
provincialism to militarism, yet every man oper- 

363 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

ates his convictions under an agreement to sur- 
render them in the interests of "harmony." 

There is no compromise. Honesty is not a 
thing that lends itself to fifty-fifty arrangements. 
Pledges are either kept or broken. America 
should join the League of Nations in faith and 
honor or else America should stay out. Middle 
ground is marsh and quagmire. The so-called 
"Americanization" 'of the Covenant is nothing 
more than the Republican attempt to poison the 
wells of public opinion. Mr. Taft, Senator Root, 
and Judge Hughes studied the first draft criti- 
cally and thoroughly, and their amendments 
were incorporated virtually as written. As for 
reservations, if there are words in the English 
language that can make clearer the exclusion 
of the Monroe Doctrine and domestic questions, 
the right of withdrawal, recognition that not 
one American soldier can be called to arms 
without the formal action of Congress, and that 
"external aggression" is a phrase that has no 
concern with internal revolution, the President 
has stated repeatedly that he will welcome them. 
All but one of the so-called reservations are 
merely bombastic restatements of the plain 
meaning of the Covenant. This one — the Lodge 
"knife-thrust" — is in no sense a reservation, 
but a nulhfication. It seeks to obtain the bene- 
fits of the League for the United States without 
assuming a single responsibility or exerting the 
least influence to shape the world forces that our 

364 



CONCLUSION 

ideals called into being. It demands dishonor 
as an American privilege, and stands as an 
insane attempt to return the country to an 
** isolation" that it never possessed at any time 
and which is now a patent madness. The 
"knife-thrust" goes hand in hand with the 
Lodge resolution for a "separate peace," even 
as it paved the way for it. The President spoke 
truly when he declined to draw any fine dis- 
tinction between "nuUifiers" and "mild nuUi- 
fiers." There is no difference. 

The issues are clean cut. On the one hand 
there is the League of Nations with its relief 
from the crushing burdens of armament, its 
removal of the causes of war, its recognition of 
human rights and human aspiration, its simple 
machinery for the amicable adjustment of inter- 
national disputes, and its release of the fraternal 
impulse from the dead weights of savage tradi- 
tions — a tremendous theory of spiritual progress 
that will permit America and the world to go 
about the decent business of Hfe in peace and 
friendship. Flexible, elastic, invitational to 
change, the present and future defects of the 
Covenant can be remedied and will be remedied, 
just as the Constitution of the United States 
has been amended. 

On the other hand there is refusal to enter 
the League of Nations, the repudiation of 
pledges, the betrayal of small nations and weak 
peoples, a return to the "balance of power," 
and a perpetuation of the old order with its evil 
emphasis on navies, armies, division, intrigue, 
and rapacity. 

365 



THE WAR, THE WORLD, AND WILSON 

Peace and prosperity versus war and bank- 
ruptcy! Honor versus dishonor! Intelligence 
versus insanity! 

The peoples of earth are ready and waiting. 
Their hate of America is no more than the bitter- 
ness of a great disappointment, bom of America's 
seeming betrayal. The evils and injustices of 
the Old World — the tragedies of oppression such 
as Ireland and Egypt — are not the result of 
popular demand, but the perversions of govern- 
ments. Given a League of Nations, with its 
lifting of ancient fears, and the men and women 
of England, France, Italy, Japan, and other 
predatory powers will rise to control and point 
the way to the high ground of justice and fra- 
ternity. Hurled back on their hopes, who can 
tell to what extremes the peoples of the world 
will be carried in their agony, grief, and despair? 

At this moment the wretched populations of 
central and eastern Europe are perishing by 
the thousands, blown like leaves on the icy winds 
of death. Men, women, and little children starve 
singly or in huddles — gnawing the roots of the 
field, padding city streets like famished beasts — 
victims of a misery so vast, so profound, that 
the ravages of disease are welcomed as a merciful 
release from the horror of living. Not a factory 
is in operation in Poland, Czechoslovakia, 
Rumania, Serbia, and parts of Austria, the 
workers sitting idle, hopeless, yet the docks of 
Liverpool and Rotterdam are piled high with 
the raw materials that would start the wheels 
of industry in every stricken land, restoring 
health, courage, and prosperity. Charity is not 

366 



CONCLUSION 

the remedy: all that these people ask is the 
chance to help themselves. Credit is the one 
answer. Had the United States entered the 
League of Nations in the beginning, this concert 
of the world would have long since worked out a 
system of credit, and instead of idleness, despair, 
famine, and pestilence there would now be order 
and energy and dawning happiness. 

This is the thought that is bitter in the mind 
of Europe, and out of that bitterness, if permitted 
to continue, what dark purposes may not come .? 
And if, in the arrogance of our strength, we 
declare ability to beat back the armed hate of 
the world, what barrier may be erected against the 
creep of disease, the contagion of anarchy? And 
if such a wall be raised — high enough and strong 
enough to shut out the angers and the pleadings of 
betrayed humanity — how shall our traitor lives 
be guarded from the loathing of our souls ? 



THE END 



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